Punters lose as ex-jockey's IPO goes lame right out of the gate
Horse racing and the stock market have a lot in common in Hong Kong, not least the fact that winning is fun, while losing isn't.
Spare a thought for investors of Asian Citrus Holdings, whose shares fell 64 per cent on its second day of trading yesterday. The orange plantation owner saw its shares debut at HK$51.25 on Thursday before trading was halted after they plunged to HK$19. Yesterday they closed at just HK$7.10, a stunning 86 per cent loss.
The share collapse arose from some investors' failure to factor a 10-for-one stock split earlier this month into the firm's net asset value of 37.30 yuan (HK$42.33) as of June, causing a misjudgment in the stock price.
Like horse racing, stock punting can result in total losses in a very short period. And somebody who knows about both fields is Asian Citrus chairman Tony Tong Wang-chow, a former jockey, who now owns a horse named after his company.
Asian Citrus, a six-year-old, made its debut in 2007. It runs in Class 4 races - usually 1,000 metres or 1,200 metres - and has won HK$1.6 million in prize money to date. It ran second in a race last month and notched up two wins last season.
