Chinese walls. They're supposed to keep one corporate arm from offering the other arm a hand.
But hardly anyone believes they really stem the info flow.
At least, not until yesterday. That's when Lai See revealed that of all the major brokerages to forecast the earnings per share of HSBC, the one that got it the most wrong was . . . HSBC Securities.
Suddenly, it looked as though those ethic blocks might actually count for something.
'Unless they made that wrong guess on purpose to make it look like HSBC isn't tipping them off as part of an elaborate ploy,' said a Lai See colleague, eyes narrowed suspiciously. 'That would be really clever.'
As it turns out, neither Chinese walls nor conspiracy theories were behind the far out figure. A glitch in the HSBC system sent the too-high number out into the info-sphere. By the time the analysts noticed, it was too late. Their HK$6.15 had become HK$6.78.
