HKEX Boss Sells Over Half of Exchange Shares
Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing chief executive Charles Li Xiaojia sold over half of his shares in the exchange in the midst of growing concerns about the city’s future as a global financial center.
Li sold 650,000 HKEX shares for HK$166.7 million ($21.4 million), according to a filing on Wednesday, trimming his holdings by 62 percent to 403,789 shares or 0.03 percent of the exchange’s total.
The highest price per share was HK$258 and the average price was $256.53, the filing said.
Financial Center Status
Li was headlined in the financial sector throughout the year for wooing a merger with the London Stock Exchange via a $32 billion bid. His approach publicly was theatric, to say the least, at one point actually invoking a theatrical classic by calling the potential merger, which was ultimately unsuccessful, a «corporate tale of Romeo and Juliet».
LSE chief executive David Schwimmer made the British bourse’s position clear and named Shanghai – not Hong Kong – as China’s financial center.
Li sells his Hong Kong bourse shares for the first time since joining it in October 2009 where he has held a successful career that includes nine patches of performance share awards between 2015 and 2018 alongside the highest salary amongst all regulators at HK$28.97 million ($3.7 million) in 2018.
