One of the UK’s biggest asset managers has warned that investors could get a raw deal if the US goes ahead with plans to force Chinese companies off American exchanges unless they submit to audit inspections, reported the Financial Times.
Aberdeen Standard Investments, the fund management arm of Standard Life Aberdeen, is lobbying the US Securities and Exchange Commission to better protect minority shareholders in New York-traded Chinese companies by preventing related parties from voting on bids to take them private.
ASI, which manages about £486.5bn, has estimated that more than 200 Chinese companies with a combined market capitalization of $1tn could be dislodged from Wall Street.
David Smith, Asia Pacific head of corporate governance at ASI, told the Financial Times this week that US regulations “don’t sufficiently protect minority shareholders” when Chinese groups are forced to delist. In a letter sent to the SEC in June the fund manager said that delistings of Chinese companies would represent “a transfer of value from minority investors to [Chinese] acquirers”.
