Goldman Sachs has been reprimanded by the Hong Kong regulator after it breached takeover rules in a $5bn deal by publishing research and trading in the shares of a client it was advising.
The transgression is the first public censure in Hong Kong of a large western bank for dealmaking advice and will be particularly embarrassing for Goldman, which last year topped the region’s league tables for M&A, working on deals worth $251bn, according to Dealogic.
Yesterday, the Securities and Futures Commission said the bank’s conduct in the takeover of Wing Hang Bank, its client, by Singapore’s OCBC “fell far short of the standards expected of a financial adviser”.