HKEX opens London office, with 31-degree weather and a Hong Kong taxi in tow
- London is the latest international office opened by the HKEX as it seeks to expand its global footprint
- HKEX opened an office in New York in June, and signed agreements with bourses in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia this year
“Our new office will add another dimension for our connectivity with this city,” Nicolas Aguzin, the HKEX CEO, said at a ceremony in London, attended by more than 100 clients and guests. “It will give us greater opportunity to service the needs of our clients here and across Europe. We’re very excited. We really believe we can better connect them with opportunities in Hong Kong, in mainland China and across all of Asia.”
As part of Wednesday’s festivities, HKEX debuted a promotional video of Aguzin travelling around London in a red Hong Kong taxi, with a gold lucky cat statue on the dashboard.
“I love London. It’s great to be back,” Aguzin said in the video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “There’s just something about it.”
The company also hosted a gathering of clients and other guests at a restaurant in the City of London, just steps away from the Bank of England, on a day that felt more like Hong Kong, than London, with the temperature topping 31 degrees Celsius.
At the gathering, Aguzin and Kevin Rideout, HKEX’s co-head of sales and marketing, rang a gong to celebrate the opening of the new office, just as the HKEX does when new issues debut or important products are launched in Hong Kong. Guests also received a small Hong Kong taxi to carry home.
“It’s never been more important for IFCs [international financial centres] like Hong Kong, like London, like New York to be more integrated,” Rideout said. “It’s also important that we all take the initiative to communicate, and communicate accurately, about the great opportunities that we can create.”
HKEX’s London debut comes amid an increasingly cutthroat battle among exchanges globally to attract and retain listings, with bourses in the US outpacing their global rivals.
CRH, the world’s largest building material company, British plumbing equipment maker Ferguson and gambling company Flutter Entertainment also have announced plans to shift their listings from London to New York this year.
WE Soda, the world’s biggest producer of natural soda ash, abandoned plans for an IPO in London in June, citing “extreme investor caution” as it sought to raise up to US$800 million.
Eighteen issuers raised about £593 million (US$744 million) in IPOs in London in the first half of the year, according to data from Ernst and Young.
By comparison, issuers in the US raised US$10.1 billion in the first half of the year, whilst Hong Kong IPOs raised about US$2.3 billion in proceeds during the period, according to Ernst and Young.
It was the lowest fundraising total in Hong Kong in the first half of the year since 2003, according to data from Refinitiv.
At the same time, the UK government has been seeking to increase the attractiveness of London as a financial hub.
UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt pledged last year to relax a series of financial regulations put in place whilst Britain was part of the European Union, dubbing the plan the Edinburgh reforms.