Bertram Lai, the top stock picker for Asia in this year's FT/StarMine Awards, made what he called a “pretty bloody-minded” decision back in 2005.
Mr Lai, head of Hong Kong and China research for CIMB Securities, had been covering a little known Chinese TV maker called Skyworth Digital Holdings. Skyworth was doing well – until Hong Kong's anti-corruption agency prosecuted Huang Hongsheng, its former chairman, in late 2004 and Skyworth's Hong Kong-listed shares were suspended indefinitely.
In an unusual move, Mr Lai decided he would continue coverage of Skyworth “even though there was no money to be made from it ... I got clients into it and I couldn't just abandon them. They would want to know what happened should the company come back [to trading],” he says.