How to (Almost) Snatch a Company: Aeso Holding’s Wild IPO
Jones Chan took his Hong Kong design firm public in 2017. Then things got ugly.
Jones Chan near his office in Hong Kong.
Photographer: Xyza Cruz Bacani for Bloomberg BusinessweekIn June 2017, as a Signal 8 storm warning was issued in Hong Kong, Jones Chan Siu-chung was trying to push his way into a shareholders’ meeting of the company he founded. Burly men with bulging biceps barred his path.
Chan, the 44-year-old, shaggy-haired chief executive officer of design company Aeso Holding Ltd., shouted from a doorway in a Hong Kong office tower, imploring investors not to vote out the company’s directors. Then he and his supporters tried to convene a rival meeting across the hallway. A scuffle broke out in the corridor, and police were called to the scene. Only the oncoming tropical storm sent everyone scurrying.