Thursday 11 April 2013

David Webb on BFM radio

Two days ago David Webb was interviewed on BFM radio, the link can be found here.

I strongly recommend to listen to the whole interview, but here are some pointers:
  • Left his banking career in Hong Kong in 1998 when the markets were bombed down, lots of value; also wanted to give back to society by starting the website
  • There is a clear conflict of interest when an exchange is listed between the commercial and regulatory departments, in Hong Kong's case the HKEX (Bursa); the other regulator is SFC (SC), from time to time these parties collide; the regulatory function should be taken out of the commercial entity HKEX
  • There should be consolidation of the many regulatory bodies into one, dealing with customers/consumers
  • In many ways Malaysia is well regulated compared to Hong Kong
  • HKEX, the majority of the directors chosen by government
  • When Webb was director, information was withheld, so Webb resigned as director
  • HK still has no quarterly reporting, one of the rare Asian countries
  • There is too much influence by the tycoons, also regarding rules for insider dealing
  • IPO's: there is no class action system, court cases are only worth it if somebody has a large investment
  • Independent directors, if approved by controlling shareholders then they are not independent, merely rubberstamps; they should be chosen by the non-controlling shareholders
  • There is a clear conflict of interest when a government is investing in companies
  • The government should not be involved with private ownership
  • 1 share = 1 vote, poll voting and publishing of the results should be the norm
  • Family controlled companies: minority investors' money is wanted but companies don't want to be accountable to them
  • RPT's: there should be an adequate explanation regarding the reason, why not from other sources, why no tender, why exactly from the controlling shareholder
  • Webb is investing in under-valued (under-researched) small caps in HK with a Corporate Governance filter
  • Manages his own funds for over 18 years, has hugely outperformance the HK index, enjoys not having to be accountable to others
  • Holding period more than 5 years on average

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