Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority

This doesn't compare with the scale of Donald Tsang/Tung Chee Wah's Cyberport deal with Richard Li.

"Andrew Kelly, the second-most senior official at the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority."

Nice work if you can get it...

After he left in April 2008, Mr Kelly took up a full-time job in the Middle East with a Kazal-associated company, earning between $200,000 and $385,000 tax-free;"

Kroll Associates

Old but interesting..

"Kroll is a world-wide investigation agency popular with Earth's leading corporations and governments for investigating other people's affairs. For more information on Kroll, visit the Kroll Associates Kroll-Ogara web site (hey, they even get free publicity here). Alternatively you could look at the piece by their Executive Managing Director for Asia, Stephen Vickers, which was published in a recent issue of Time Magazine. Incidentally, we wonder how a Managing Director could ever be non-Executive, but perhaps the more words the better in US titles."

Hontex admits lying

Hontex, another Fujian based company admits lying in the prospectus saying it was all a "misunderstanding".

"Embattled mainland fabric maker Hontex International Holdings, accused by the Securities and Futures Commission of deception and fraud, admitted yesterday to making misleading statements during its December share sale and said it plans to compensate investors."

Meanwhile the auditors are covering themselves in gory as usual:

"In May, KPMG resigned as Hontex's auditor after its staff members were offered cash gifts to cover up discrepancies in the sportswear firm's books. A week earlier, the Independent Commission Against Corruption had charged KPMG senior manager Leung Sze-chit with allegedly taking a HK$300,000 bribe to overlook accounting problems with Hontex's prospectus."

Supposedly, the cash gifts were just token gestures and not bribes.... it was all a misunderstanding?

Gome's Du Juan Freed, SFC helpless

Chinese company listed in HK, insiders rape the company and the SFC is powerless to act.

"The Beijing high court upheld on appeal Wong's 14-year jail sentence for bribery and insider trading handed down in May. But it commuted a three year and six month term given to Du and released her, prosecutors said in a statement.

Wong, known on the mainland as Huang Guangyu, and Du have yet to answer allegations by Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission that they perpetrated stock market malpractice resulting in HK$1.6 billion in losses in 2008.

Last August the SFC won a High Court order freezing HK$1.66 billion in Gome shares controlled by Wong and Du. But to date it has been unable to serve a summons on the pair as their whereabouts were unknown.

People with direct knowledge of the case said the regulator cannot send a writ to Du across the border. Meanwhile, Du could send her representative to take part in Gome's special general meeting in the city next month."

China Green 904.HK releases

Going somewhat to reassure investors China Green releases their annual results this morning. Net profit compared to last year rose 25%. The stock jumps 25% as well.

Interesting tidbit about the auditors:

"CCIF CPA Limited (“CCIF”) has merged their business with PCP CPA Limited resulting
in Crowe Horwath (HK) CPA Limited (“Crowe Horwath”) operating as the merged firm
from 13 October 2009. "

China Green - Another Fujian fubar

Delays annual results announcement - by not showing up for a prearranged meeting with the analysts (Auditors need more time). Follows up with a filing with the HKEX stating they don't know why the stock is crashing and burning.

Questions being raised about them overpaying for land leases in the Fujian province and being compared to Enron about how, except for 2009, overly consistent their past earnings have been. Stock was down 45% at one stage.

Their investors will be staring down the abyss...

New Filipino national monument

Gotta love the Filipinos...

Intel acquires McAfee..

McAfee shareholders are still rejoicing with this early Christmas present from Otellini - the book will be a bestseller, "How we head faked the idiots from Intel"

“(1) As if governed by Newton's First Law of Motion, an institution will resist any change in its current direction; (2) Just as work expands to fill available time, corporate projects or acquisitions will materialize to soak up available funds; (3) Any business craving of the leader, however foolish, will be quickly supported by detailed rate-of-return and strategic studies prepared by his troops; and (4) The behavior of peer companies, whether they are expanding, acquiring, setting executive compensation or whatever, will be mindlessly imitated. Institutional dynamics, not venality or stupidity, set businesses on these courses, which are too often misguided.” - Buffett

Chaoda'd again

Mr Ho never ceases to deliver (USD$350m capital raise)..

Chinese frauds making waves in NZ

The two men are close business associates. Mr Tang manages Mr Chen's charity, and also acts as a spokesman for Mr Chen, who is notoriously media shy.

Last month, it was revealed that Mr Tang may have misled the public about his qualifications.

The former head of Microsoft in China has claimed to have a PhD from the California Institute of Technology.

He has since admitted that is wrong, and that his PhD is from another American institute - which turns out to have been closed down for being an unregistered "diploma mill", which sold degrees.

Mr Tang, who has also been accused of falsely claiming to have registered two patents, responded to the scandal by telling the Beijing News: "Losers cheat some people and get caught. Winners cheat the whole world all the time."