Heard the one about the orchid king and the sports fabric maker? The former lasted a year as a public company in Hong Kong, the latter
64 days. Both were undone after it emerged that they grossly overstated revenues in their listing documents. Under new rules proposed yesterday, sponsors of initial public offerings could be sued or even prosecuted for misstatements. About time.
The orchid king was Yang Bin, a Chinese-Dutch entrepreneur with North Korean links whose orchid producer, Euro-Asia Agricultural, was a market darling in 2001 before its reported overseas sales were shown to be twice the value of China’s entire floricultural exports.