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January 29, 2007


UBS Securities’ Beijing Office to Open Soon

For some reason I couldn’t get to wsj.com since the beginning of the year, but today I got through and plowed through three weeks of headlines. I found about three stories that I was interested in reading closely. (I sorely regret re-subscribing to the WSJ for another year.) Here are the key bits from one of them:

“UBS Securities is ready to start business as China’s first full-service brokerage house run by a foreign firm. Their new Chinese venture is armed with a full set of licenses to trade, underwrite securities, manage assets and publish research, among other things. UBS won government approval to set up a securities firm in September 2005, just as China’s securities regulator was closing the door on new foreign ventures. UBS agreed to pay $210 million for a 20% stake in a new brokerage house formed out of the former Beijing Securities, a troubled broker owned by the Beijing municipal government. UBS will have control of the company’s 11-member board of directors without owning the largest slice of stock. UBS is one of six in the buying consortium. The Beijing government is the largest shareholder with 33%, three Chinese state companies each have stakes of 14% and International Finance Corp., the investment arm of the World Bank, has a 4.99% stake. UBS Securities doesn’t have an opening date, and the equity hasn’t yet changed hands. UBS expects it to happen in the first quarter.”

Amusing bit (in bold) from UBS:

“By September 2005, a strategic cooperation agreement had been signed with the Bank of China and Beijing SASAC (State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission), and UBS and The International Finance Corporation (IFC) had received State Council Approval of their plans to restructure Beijing Securities. What at first glance appears an unusually quick implementation of a high-level strategic decision is, in fact, the result of patient investment and a long-term approach.”

“Unusually quick implementation” — this phrase doesn’t even exist in Chinese. ;-)

Article from June 21, 2006: Ahead of rivals, UBS clears step to starting China brokerage

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 2:47 pm (utc+8) and is filed under China, Trading and Investing.

2 Responses to “UBS Securities’ Beijing Office to Open Soon”

  1. jpmist said:
    January 29th, 2007 at 11:03 pm

    I’ve wondered if the new web site design has all the bugs out. The opening page is an absolute pig and to make things worse it insists on refreshing itself frequently. I use Firefox on my Mac and it often simply doesn’t load, yet on the PCs at work I haven’t noticed any delay.

    I considered dropping my Online account, but the fine print says they won’t rebate the months I have remaining.

    I’ve found that a quick way into the site is to use the “TODAY’S NEWSPAPER” link on the left sidebar. . .

  2. C. Maoxian said:
    January 30th, 2007 at 8:02 am

    jpmist: I’ve always bookmarked directly to “Today’s Newspaper” since I like to read the headlines without the other crap they cram the main page with interfering.

    They’re pretty scummy about making you call to unsubscribe too — you should be able to do it online, but you can’t.

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