New Economy Forum

Asia Embraces Dual-Class Shares, and Investor Activists Smolder

Hong Kong, Singapore have allowed dual-class share structures
HKEX chief welcomes ‘dawn of exciting new era’ with dual class

People walk along an elevated walkway as an electronic ticker displays stock figures in Pudong's Lujiazui Financial District in Shanghai, China, on Saturday, June 2, 2018. China's banks, scrambling to adjust to the government's deleveraging campaign, are likely to add to pressures on the corporate bond market as they shed more of their massive note holdings and de-risk their balance sheets.Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

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By Benjamin Robertson and Andrea Tan

August 7, 2018 at 4:00 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

In the battle between Asia and the U.S. for the next wave of technology listings, the shareholder advocates lost out.

After years of debate, Hong Kong and Singapore’s stock exchanges this year allowed companies to list shares with different voting rights. The fear that the next Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. or Baidu Inc. would opt for New York finally won out over concerns that dual-class shares would erode the long-term integrity of markets by allowing corporate founders to run roughshod over other investors.