Charltons on behalf of 7 corporate finance firms responds to HKEX SPAC Consultation

The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (the “HKEX”), released its Consultation Paper on Special Purpose Acquisition Companies1 (the “Consultation Paper”) in September 2021 which invited market participants to submit written responses to the Consultation Paper.

Charltons, on behalf of Alliance Capital Partners Limited, Altus Capital Limited, Anglo Chinese Corporate Finance, Limited, Frontpage Capital Limited, Oriental Patron Asia Limited, Somerley Capital Limited, and Yu Ming Investment Management Limited (the “Group”) submitted a response to the HKEX Consultation Paper. The Group’s full response can be read here.2 Please also see HKEX Issues Consultation on SPACs3 which is a Charltons’ newsletter summary of the Consultation Paper.

The basis of the Group’s submission was that the current HKEX Listing Rules should, to the extent practicable, be equally applied to the listing of SPACs. To the extent, that this is not possible, the Group’s view was care should be taken not to apply unduly onerous requirements to SPACs so as not to curtail the innovation associated with SPACs and not to exclude the local Hong Kong market. Two key submissions made by the Group were that the trading of the shares in the SPAC should not be limited to professional investors and the market capitalisation requirements should be lowered from the proposed HK$1 billion to HK$500 million.

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