8月8日，《南华早报》发布上海交通大学上海高级金融学院金融学教授、中国金融研究院副院长钱军的采访报道，对于中国大陆中型券商赴港收购，钱军教授认为，金融机构跨地区收购将在未来日益增长，但不少参与者低估了整合中的困难和风险。
 

Mid-sized brokerages seen buying HK rivals

Amid competition and wave of consolidation at home, mainland securities firms now target overseas peers in an effort to grow through acquisitions

Hong Kong will see more brokerage houses acquired by mainland rivals as these medium-sized securities firms expand overseas business amid severe consolidation in their home market.

Shanghai-listed Soochow Securities entered into a memorandum of understanding with Hong Kong-listed Skyway Securities Group to acquire at least 51 per cent of Skyway by subscribing to new shares, according to a Skyway statement filed with the Hong Kong bourse on July 29.

Medium-sized brokerages rarely venture overseas to buy Hong Kong firms, though bigger firms made the jump years ago.

Soochow ranked 21st among 125 mainland securities firms last year, with 70 billion yuan (HK$81.8 billion) in total assets, according to data from the Securities Association of China. Companies in the top 10 generally had assets of more than 200 billion yuan.

Kenny Wen, Hong Kong-based wealth management strategist at Sun Hung Kai Financial, said more such deals would occur in the city.

"There are at least two mainland companies on the way to starting brokerage businesses in Hong Kong. It has become a trend," Wen said.

Wang Xiaojun, an analyst with Cinda Securities, said: "Soochow's move is a bit surprising. In the past, most cross-border acquisitions were done by big sec urities firms because they have the capital, larger business coverage and the eagerness to expand overseas."

The medium-sized brokerages were clearly speeding up overseas expansion, Wang added.

The growing interest among mainlanders in buying Hong Kong stocks through the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect share-trading scheme is one of the reasons that has propelled brokers to strengthen their positions in the city.

Asset management and corporate financing businesses are even bigger pies that mainland financial securities firms can take a slice of, as more than half of the companies listed in Hong Kong are mainland firms.

Wen said a cross-border acquisition gave mainland firms the paperwork required by the Sec urities and Futures Commission in Hong Kong, such as the Type 6 licence for corporate finance and the Type 9 licence for asset management.

He described such deals as "each to their own", given that local brokers were also willing to increase exposure to the mainland following the Shanghai stock link and the upcoming Shenzhen stock connection.

Soochow's move came after Everbright Securities, the second-largest broker with 158.9 billion yuan in total assets, finalised its acquisition of a 70 per cent stake in Sun Hung Kai Financial last year.

The first purchase of a Hong Kong brokerage by a mainland rival came in 2009, when Haitong Securities acquired Hong Kong-listed Tai Fook Securities, now known as Haitong International Securities Group.

"Tai Fook didn't bring much in the way of earnings to Haitong, but it had overseas clients, and the acquisition was also a trial run before Haitong entered other foreign markets such as Europe," Wang said.

With the mainland's securities companies undergoing consolidation, cross-border acquisitions might help medium-sized brokerages transition into specialised boutique firms, said Qian Jun, professor of finance at the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance.

Financing demand from small and medium-sized mainland firms in Hong Kong was a niche market, one that bigger investment banks were not interested in, Qian said.

"Such cross-border acquisitions will certainly increase in future. Hong Kong's gloomy economic growth has created bargains for mainland financials holding lots of cash. But the question remains whether any two parties can integrate well," he said. "Most merger and acquisition participants underestimate the integration difficulties."

Besides possible divergence in acquisition price and terms that could kill a deal at the beginning, differences in regulation, operating strategy and management between the two markets could take longer than expected for mainland firms to navigate, Qian said.

Hong Kong was a nice first step for mainland firms "going out", but the second step might be several times harder to take, he added.

【原文链接】Mid-sized brokerages seen buying HK rivals