History
The HKFE went bankrupt in 1987 during the October 1987 global stock market crash when Sino Group chairman Robert Ng, who had been speculating in futures through two Panamanian-registered companies, suffered paper losses of HK$1 billion, but then refused to pay, claiming to be protected by the limited liability of the companies through which he had traded. Trading was also halted on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for four days. An investigation by the Commercial Crime Bureau of the Royal Hong Kong Police revealed that Ng had avoided required margin calls through collusion with one of his brokers. However, in the end, no charges were laid against Ng because the colonial government of Hong Kong felt that prosecuting him would pose a risk to overall market stability. Instead, a deal was worked out which saw Ng repay HK$500 million, with Hong Kong taxpayers providing the rest of the funds needed by the Exchange through a government bailout.
On 6 March 2000, the HKFE merged with the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, and together with Hong Kong Securities Clearing Company formed Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited.
Read more about this topic: Hong Kong Futures Exchange
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)