Chinese tech firms tend to be registered in the Caymans and listed in New York or Hong Kong. Such cosmopolitan status is unpopular with regulators keen to bolster domestic stock trading. Noisy new enthusiasm among tech groups for local listings is evidence of this. The result will be quick gains followed by muddy governance and trapped value.
Cheerleaders for bourses such as those in Shenzhen and Shanghai are promoting issuance of Chinese depositary receipts (CDRs). These offer the most obvious way for bullish locals to invest in tech champions such as Alibaba and Tencent. A crackdown on high-yielding wealth management products has forced them to rebalance portfolios. But there is a lack of alternatives.
The CDRs would thus likely trade at a premium to underlying securities. The analogy, according to Morgan Stanley, are the American depositary receipts of Indian bank HDFC. These trade at a 15 per cent premium to shares with limited availability to keen foreign buyers. Likewise, A shares traded on Chinese exchanges have typically been worth 30 per cent more than H shares in the same groups listed in Hong Kong.