ZHONGTAI INTERNATIONAL SECURITIES LIMITED 中泰國際證券有限公司

Mr Liu Shaolin allegedly rigged the price of China Hongbao (then Pak Wing, 8316) in 2018.

Rather strangely, the SFC's notice to the MMT was dated 16-Aug-2023 but has only now been uploaded to the MMT website (the PDF was created on 26-Mar-2024) and announced by the SFC. Why the delay?

The action comes just 3 days before the 6-year limit for civil actions under the Limitation Ordinance. Presumably, criminal charges for market manipulation will not be brought, perhaps because the individuals are not in HK. The SFC has filed a Writ of Summons at the court but has not published it online, and the court registry is not online.

For front-running a client's order from 1-11 Aug-2017. Our records indicate that he left China Tonghai (then known as Quam) on 31-Aug-2017 and joined Zhongtai International Securities on 24-Oct-2017, ceasing to represent them the day before this announcement.

They don't name the stock, but Webb-site can tell you it's probably Macau E&M (1408) which listed at $1.00 on 11-Sep-2020 and closed at $4.36 on 25-Nov-2020 before crashing 81.9% the next day. See the movements in our CCASS Analysis System.

The "Statement of Reasons" for this has not been published. It follows 9 earlier restriction notices in relation to the same stock on 20-Mar-2019.

Webb-site can reveal another SFC investigation underway involving dealings in Pak Wing (8316). The manipulation of this GEM bubble reveals another connection between China Huarong (2799) and what we call the "Chung Nam Network". The more we scrutinise Huarong, the worse it looks. Will the State end up bailing out the bailer?

From the Statement of Reasons in the Gazette Notices, the only possible stock is Pak Wing (8316). A client's accounts at 2 brokers with assets of HK$36m are involved of which $2.9m is frozen.

This comes 1 year and 1 day after the block moved from HSBC to Zhongtai. The shares were pledged to Zhongtai, so this suggests that the controller (owned by the Chairman and his wife) may have remortgaged the shares. The SFC issued a concentration warning on the stock on 16-Dec-2016.

According to filings, the shares were pledged on 14-Dec-2016 to Zhongtai Dingfeng Classified Fund SP, managed by Zhongtai International Asset Management Ltd. Almost a year later, perhaps they have just been repledged to a different lender. Chairman Li Feng Mao holds the shares via HK Guoxin Investment Group Ltd. ABCI is wholly-owned by Agricultural Bank of China (1288).