Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) published its Consultation Conclusion on the Proposal under Issue 15 of the 2008 Combined Consultation Paper (Consultation Conclusion) today.

On 11 January 2008, HKEx published a Combined Consultation Paper on proposals to address 18 substantive policy issues.   Under Issue 15 of the paper, HKEx proposed to amend the Listing Rules regarding notifiable transactions to exclude any construction of fixed assets by an issuer for its own use in the ordinary and usual course of business.  The proposal would not have exempted issuers from the notifiable transaction rules where the acquisition of a component of the self-constructed asset was in itself a transaction.  

Having considered the market responses, HKEx has modified the original proposal to exempt self-construction of assets and revised the Rule amendments to disapply the aggregation requirements when an issuer enters into a series of transactions to construct, develop or refurbish an asset for its own use in its ordinary and usual course of business if the sole basis for aggregation is because the series of transactions form parts of one larger asset.  

“Shareholders will continue to have the right to know about and participate in decisions that involve important changes affecting the issuer after these rule amendments are implemented,” said Mark Dickens, HKEx’s Head of Listing.  “At the same time, the rule amendments will facilitate directors in planning for business development that is in line with the issuer’s core business.”

The Consultation Conclusion can be downloaded from the “Market Consultation - Consultation Conclusions” section of the HKEx website.

Amendments to the Listing Rules can be downloaded from the “Regulatory Framework and Rules - Rules and Guidelines on Listing Matters - Listing Rule Update for Main Board Listing Rules” and “Regulatory Framework and Rules - Rules and Guidelines on Listing Matters - Listing Rule Update/Interpretation for GEM Listing Rules” sections of the HKEx website. 

The Listing Rule amendments will become effective on 1 September 2009.