Bloomberg/Asia Embraces Dual-Class Shares, and Investor Activists Smolder

Asia Embraces Dual-Class Shares, and Investor Activists Smolder
By Benjamin Robertson and Andrea Tan
August 8, 2018
Bloomberg

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-07/asia-embraces-dual-class-shares-and-investor-activists-smoulder

Hong Kong and Singapore stock exchange finally allows firms to list shares with or without voting rights. This is called Dual-Class shares, where Class A shareholders would have voting rights but Class B shareholders would not. HongKong has the highest IPO record in June to August 2018 as Chinese technology firms including Xiaomi Corp jumped into listing dual-class shares. 

It is an opportunity for tech company owners that they could keep their ownership while collect huge investment from the exchange. For investors, they would not know much about the technology while they only want to taste a bit of fruits from the tech firms. The size of IPO in Singapore market is not as huge as Hong Kong, but they still have chances. New York exchange even acknowledges that they have been impacted by dual-class shares listing in Hong Kong. 

Some critics worry about the tech firm owners would governs in a stubborn way like Zuckerberg who did not response properly about their data sharing and descending earnings. However, as the market shows, dual-listing shares are still attractive to investors. Even governments like it because they can keep their high-technology firms within their own exchanges.