CITIC denies HK share plan

CITIC Securities Co, Asia's biggest brokerage by market value, said it won't sell shares in Hong Kong for at least three months. A statement from the China brokerage added that Chairman Wang Dongming didn't mean to say in a Financial Times interview published on Monday that the company would sell shares in the city in the short term.

Spokesman Raymond Tang said the same day that the company is considering the possibility of selling shares in Hong Kong though it hadn't started working on a plan.

HSBC wins ruling

HSBC Holdings Plc yesterday won a Hong Kong court order preventing Steven Wallace, its former Asia head of investment banking, from switching to rival Citigroup Inc. The Court of First Instance granted HSBC's request for injunctions ordering Wallace to stop working until March at Citigroup, where he took a post in October as managing director and head of mergers and acquisitions in Asia, three months after leaving HSBC.

Insurance rules

CHINA issued a guideline yesterday to promote the development of its insurance intermediary market. It is the first such guideline made for the sector. At the end of September, there were 2,297 insurance intermediary players nationwide, including 1.865 million agents.

Bank expands

HSBC Bank (China) Co has opened a branch in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, reinforcing its presence in the fast-growing Peal River Delta region in south China, the bank said yesterday. With the new branch, HSBC has expanded its network to 53 service outlets across the country, including 16 branches and 37 sub-branches.

Malaysia boom

MALAYSIA'S economy grew at the fastest pace in three years as rising domestic demand and investment countered declining manufactured exports. Southeast Asia's third-largest economy expanded 6.7 percent in the third quarter from a year ago, after gaining a revised 5.8 percent in the second quarter, the central bank said in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Shenzhen branch

SHENZHEN Development Bank opened a sub-branch in Yangpu District yesterday, boosting its number of outlets in Shanghai to 24. It's the Shenzhen-based bank's first new outlet in the city since September 2004.

All's fair at sea

EUROPORT, one of the world's leading maritime exhibitions, will hold its Asia fair in China's northern port city of Tianjin in 2009, VNU Exhibitions Asia and Ahoy Rotterdam announced yesterday in Shanghai.

Fleet expansion

AIR China Ltd, the nation's biggest international carrier, will add about 40 Airbus SAS planes to its fleet in the next five years, Chairman Li Jiaxiang said yesterday. He didn't say whether the aircraft were part of China's 160-plane Airbus order announced on Monday.