pianist Wrote:SGX has been shortchanging retail investors for such a long time
SGX has never been run for the retail investor. But it is a good thing that Philip Fong chose to stick it to SGX. Maybe the embarrassment of being called out by a partner of a law firm will make SGX finally do something about this foreign-company-listed-on-SGX debacle. Certainly the public mood is souring on SGX's effectiveness as a regulator.
I personally think HKSE's requirement for directors to be personally liable for ensuring compliance with the Listing Manual is a great idea for SGX to adopt, though for real effectiveness it has to be part of the Companies Act (so that a breach would be a criminal offence making the director liable for jail time) rather than merely a "rule" of the Listing Manual (which can be ignored since the only punishment is a public censure and a monetary fine).
Alternatively, if SGX wants to let "the market" decide then it should implement a system to make short-selling easy. Then short-sellers will have a financial incentive to expose the fraudulent companies, and the marketplace will become self-policing. Right now, short-selling is inconvenient and expensive, so frauds can stay around for a long time, and they do a lot of damage when they finally blow up. With easier short-selling, price discovery is faster, and frauds get taken out more quickly so less damage is done.
Imagine if all the S-chip scandals had been exposed at half their peak prices - much less shareholder wealth would have been destroyed. Plus, with smaller blow-ups, the damage to SGX's reputation as a listing venue would have been reduced, and better valuations would have been awarded to the "real" companies. We might not have lost companies like Want Want, Sihuan and Man Wah (who all left SGX and re-listed in HK at twice their SGX valuations - or even higher).