Greek Contagion – 15% Oil Correction has Kuwait asking OPEC to support Prices
May 9, 2010Lufthansa to use BioFuel in its Planes to Reduce Costs of buying Carbon Certificates
May 9, 2010As I was writing in my earlier posts , one of the biggest causalities of The Greek crisis has been the world IPO market.Not only have the IPOs being deferred , Even Rights Offerings are also being delayed due to the market volatility.What has been interesting ,that it has become a worldwide phenomenon. You would have thought that some of the Asian markets would have little relation to the problems in Greece ,but such is the nature of the globalized capital these days that problems in one part of the globe are instantaneously transmitted to all other parts.There is a real possibility that the current contagion might put the brakes on the tepid recovery we are seeing in some of the developed economies powered by the the fiscal and monetary stimulus.
Hong Kong’s IPO market hits the brakes – Economic Times
Hong Kong’s IPO market -the biggest in the world last year- has hit the brakes with several companies shelving share sales as the Greek debt crisis pounds global markets.
Swire Properties, a major real estate developer in the city, Thursday pulled a planned 3.09-billion US dollar share sale, just two days after Giti Tire, China’s largest tyre maker, shelved a 500-million dollar initial public offering.
On Friday, iron ore producer China Tian Yuan halted its 522-million dollar issue, Dow Jones Newswires reported, citing an unnamed source.
The shelving of the IPOs comes as British insurer Prudential on Wednesday delayed launching a rights issue in London aimed at helping it fund a 35.5-billion-dollar takeover of AIA, the Asian arm of troubled US insurer AIG.
Prudential, which remains in talks with Britain’s financial sector regulator over the deal, said Friday that its planned listings on the Hong Kong and Singapore exchanges would also be delayed.
It did not give a revised date for those listings, which will add trading venues without issuing new shares.
The announcement came hours after Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng index fell Friday to its lowest level in three months, closing at 19,920.29 points as investors fretted about the spectre of a European fiscal implosion.
One company that has gone ahead with plans to list is French cosmetics maker L’Occitane, which saw its share price dive 4.51 percent to 14.40 Hong Kong dollars (1.85 US) when it debuted in Hong Kong on Friday after raising 704 million US dollars in its IPO.
Brian Brenner, national director of tenant representation at global real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle in Hong Kong, said it made sense for companies to pull their share sales given current market conditions.