CHINA MERCHANTS SECURITIES (HK) CO., LIMITED 招商證券(香港)有限公司

The tribunal concludes that it was "as likely as not" that Mr Cai was appointed as the team Principal for the doomed IPO of China Metal Recycling, and contradictory reports from UBS suggest it could also have been Michael Ngai Ming Tak, who also denied it. The standard of proof, namely the balance of probabilities, was not met.

As we predicted in March when UBS was fined but one of its clients was not named, this relates to the IPO of China Metal Recycling, listed in 2009 and ordered in 2015 to be wound up. The IPO was jointly sponsored by UBS and China Merchants Securities.

The firm only sponsored 2 IPOs in 2009, so this almost certainly relates to China Metal Recycling (Holdings) Ltd. In 2015, the SFC obtained a court order to wind it up. The other sponsor was UBS AG. We note that Mr Wu is still an INED of Jiu Rong (2358), a member of the "Enigma Network".

The amazing thing is that the SFC still allows brokers to act as asset managers by operating client accounts on a discretionary basis, without requiring them to hold a type 9 (asset management) license.

A graphic from this week's judgment on China Metal Recycling (0773) seems strangely familiar.

...and there goes HK$11.09bn of market capitalisation - it will be interesting to see how much of the last reported net assets of $7.10bn (30-Jun-2012) the liquidators are able to find. It's fairly safe to say that the sponsors, UBS and China Merchant Securities, are going to face an investigation by the SFC.

We note that the company has just closed a rights issue underwritten by Enerchine Securities Ltd (owned by Enerchina, 0622) to raise HK$172m (about US$22m) net.

She failed to voice record her client's instructions to buy a "substantial quantity" of shares in from China Lumena (0067). Presumably the SFC was investigating those trades in the first place.

In the first of a multi-part series, we delve into a transaction by the HK offshoot of Xinhua, the PRC's official news agency, and the people behind it.