香港的交易所正将希望寄托在通讯odities and the Renminbi

在快速变化的证券交易所世界，香港交流和清理坐落在令人羡慕的位置。运营的香港联交所是世界上上市公司市场资本化的第五大公司，价格为2.83万亿美元，也是最有利可图之一。在过去的五年中，由于其作为中国公司首屈一指的门户的地位，它拥有更大的初始公开发行，比世界上任何其他交易所的初始公开发行，1.417亿美元。在家里，它享有法定垄断，这些垄断可以保护它从Upstart电子交换中保护它，在其他地方讨论过令人庇护的Bourses。毫不奇怪，投资者奖励了惠科的市场上限为215亿美元，使其成为世界上最有价值的交流，前面是2号芝加哥的CME集团。

Yet for all of the company’s strengths, CEO Charles Li Xiaojia knows he can’t afford to be complacent.

HKEx has a much narrower business than most of its global rivals, relying mainly on equity trading for its revenue and profits. The lucrative IPO business is vulnerable to erosion if the powers that be in China decide to promote their domestic exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Li needs to make the company bigger and broader if he wants to assure its continued success.

The former investment banker is moving quickly to do just that. Last June, HKEx outbid half a dozen rivals, including CME, IntercontinentalExchange and NYSE Euronext, to acquire the London Metal Exchange for £1.4 billion ($2.2 billion). The deal gives HKEx control of the world’s largest metals-trading venue and will, Li believes, enhance the LME’s position in China, the world’s biggest consumer of metals. He intends to use the LME’s platform to expand into other commodity sectors, such as energy.

In addition, Li and his team are creating a slew of investment products based on the renminbi, ranging from futures contracts in the Chinese currency to renminbi-denominated stocks and derivatives. This initiative is still in its early stages, but the potential for growth is enormous as China gradually liberalizes its currency and allows freer movement of capital in and out of the country.

“我们正在将香港交易所建立成综合的多资产级交换，”李，51，告诉机构投资者。亚博赞助欧冠“我们的使命和目标是成为中国客户和正在寻求中国曝光的国际客户的全球选择交流。关键是，我们需要在每个重要的地方。我们将利用伦敦金属交换作为催化剂，帮助促进中国资本账户的加速开放。“

李的雄心勃勃,但他面临许多challenges in trying to achieve those goals. Hong Kong does enjoy a natural advantage as China’s preferred offshore center — many of Beijing’s recent financial liberalization moves have specifically targeted the Hong Kong market — but HKEx remains well behind Singapore Exchange, and even further behind global players such as CME and Deutsche Börse, in developing derivatives and nonequity products. And to secure the LME, Li had to offer a full price and commit to maintaining the exchange’s physical trading floor, known as “the ring,” for the next three years. That commitment may prevent HKEx from realizing efficiency gains in the short term and eventually lead to lower returns on the deal.

In his three years at the helm, the CEO has already injected a lot of dynamism into the exchange. Those who know him well say Li, a mainland-born Chinese who studied in the U.S. and worked as a  Wall Street investment banker, has the perfect blend of experience and knowledge to secure HKEx’s future in China’s wider financial sector.

“Charles is a banker who was a lawyer by training, and he has a deep understanding of China’s stock market,” says Yin Ke, vice chairman of Citic Securities Co., China’s largest investment bank, and chief executive of its Hong Kong–based subsidiary, Citic Securities International Co. “When he became CEO of HKEx, some people were worried: Can an investment banker lead an exchange? But Charles is someone with strategic vision. Since becoming CEO he’s helped move HKEx from being a passive player of China’s interests to being an active player and caterer to China’s interests.”

Born in Beijing and known for his strong ties to senior officials, Li has taken steps to transform HKEx’s relationships with mainland exchanges to be more collaborative than competitive. Last year the company formed a joint venture with the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges to develop index-linked products that can trade on all three markets; it has rolled out three indexes so far. HKEx intends to use the LME to forge similar ties with other mainland exchanges, including the China Financial Futures Exchange in Shanghai, the Shanghai Metal Exchange Market, the Shanghai Futures Exchange and commodities exchanges in Dalian and Zhengzhou, says Romnesh Lamba, co-head of HKEx’s global markets division.

中国正在成为一家资本净进口商的转型中，建立其制造业，成为一家资本的净出口国，以广泛的资产课程寻求全球投资。李希望确保香港交易所成为此过程的主要管道之一。潜力是惊人的：如果中国加速其金融自由化，中国公司在未来十年中可以发出31万亿元（5万亿美元）的股票，以及价值258万元的固定收益和货币产品，而且could buy 95 trillion yuan of commodities, including futures contracts and other hedging tools, according to HKEx’s strategic plan for 2013–’15, which Li and Lamba presented to local analysts and media in January.

那些令人兴趣的数字可能看起来很遥远，但李认为LME交易可能是一个更快自由化的催化剂。

“China is facing a growing need for market access,” he says. “They are shortchanged with the status quo. They are worse off with markets closed than markets open. If we are able to provide a solution in a place like Hong Kong, where they feel comfortable, and offer a value proposition to solve that problem, that will go a long way to eliminate the paranoia and concerns of opening up.”

自世纪以来，香港交易所享有强劲增长。中国公司急于养育资本海上，包括大银行和其他国有企业的主要私有化，帮助交流将其上市扩大到2000年至2009年至2009年的1,533家公司，并将其公司的总市场上限三倍。然而，由于这种增长是令人兴奋的，但是，香港交易所委员会担心交易所正在成为一个诀窍小马：它从股票和股权衍生品中获得了大部分收入。相比之下，基于CME和法兰克福的DeutscheBörse从更广泛的更高版本衍生品和辅助服务中获得大部分他们的收入，如清算和结算和数据规定。

With average daily turnover in equities tumbling 23 percent last year, to HK$53.9 billion ($6.96 billion), HKEx’s revenue declined by 8 percent, to HK$7.2 billion, and net profit fell 20 percent, to HK$4.1 billion. Equities and equity derivatives generated 58 percent of revenue and 57 percent of profits.

“香港交易所的长期前景仍然主要是关于股权市场卷，”信用瑞士信贷的分析师Arjan Van Veen说。到目前为止，2013年交易量已强劲地恢复，范维埃预测，本集团的收入将在今年的20％贬值。“长期我们看到香港交易所的前景，因为中国的资本市场继续发展，”他说。

The Hong Kong exchange faces much stiffer headwinds than it did a decade ago, however. China has built the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges into powerful rivals; they boasted market caps of $2.55 trillion and $1.15 trillion, respectively, at the end of 2012. Other regional bourses have developed more-diverse suites of products. In 2005, Singapore Exchange expanded into commodities through a joint venture with the Chicago Board of   Trade called the Joint Asian Derivatives Exchange, or JADE. Singapore also offers one of Asia’s broadest ranges of equity index derivatives, including products based on the Chinese, Indian and Japanese markets, and it has developed one of Asia’s leading central clearinghouses.

2010年1月，香港交易所委员会聘请了李为首席执行官，取代保罗周，并给了他一个授权扩大交易所的发言。对于一家始终由英国外籍人士或香港公民经营的公司，决定委任大陆出生的首席辐条关于香港交易所试图去的方向的决定。

Though he was born in Beijing, Li was raised in Gansu, a rural province in northwestern China where his parents were petrochemical engineers. In 1977, when Li was 16, his parents arranged for him to work on an oil rig in the Bohai Sea, off the northeast coast of China. The Cultural Revolution had just ended, but the country’s schools were not yet operating normally, and Li never attended senior high school. In 1980 he enrolled at Xiamen University, in the southeastern province of Fujian, and obtained a BA in English literature.

1984年毕业后，李成为一名记者，然后是在中国日报，政府的英语报纸上的编辑，他经常采访外国尊严。A few years later he went to the U.S. to earn a master’s in journalism at the University of Alabama, then attended Columbia Law School in New York, where he acquired a JD degree in 1991. Li worked as an associate at Brown & Wood and later at Davis Polk & Wardwell, where he helped American clients establish legal frameworks for their Chinese operations. While making preparations for a $1 billion global bond sale by the People’s Republic of China, Li worked alongside bankers from lead underwriter Merrill Lynch & Co. Wall Street banks were ramping up their international networks at the time, and Li’s Chinese background and language skills made him a hot commodity. In 1994 he accepted a job offer from Merrill — and at a stroke tripled his salary, he recalled in a 2011 talk to Columbia Law students.

Friends say Li used his position at Merrill Lynch and later J.P. Morgan, which he joined in 2003, to befriend top officials at the China Securities Regulatory Commission, offering free regulatory reform advice and establishing relationships that would pay off when Beijing began privatizing its big state-owned enterprises. He helped Merrill win underwriting mandates for several landmark deals, including China Mobile’s 80 billion-yuan IPO in 2000 and the $1.4 billion New York and Hong Kong share offering by China National Offshore Oil Corp. (Cnooc) in 2001. Li also advised half a dozen Chinese companies on overseas acquisition attempts, most notably working with Cnooc on its $19 billion agreement to buy Unocal Corp. Cnooc ultimately abandoned that deal in the face of heated political opposition in the U.S. Congress.

When Li took over as CEO of HKEx in January 2010, he was determined to shore up the exchange’s competitive standing. HKEx was performing well, but there were potential threats on the horizon. Technology, the explosive growth of derivatives and globalization have upset the established order in the exchange industry, making even some of the largest players vulnerable. The latest evidence: ICE’s $8.2 billion takeover offer for NYSE Euronext, which was accepted in December and is awaiting regulatory approval.

如果香港交易所希望避免像纽约州Euroonext这样的命运，它需要多元化和加强与中国的联系，说。“是的，我们很幸运，我们在香港领导，我们还没有比赛。我们可以访问中国市场。但这种领导力可以很容易地带走。你看到，当纽约证券交易所被一个小型期货交易所接管时。这就是为什么我们搬进金属和期货。我们必须有多种产品以生存。“

HKEX于12月关闭的LME购买LME代表了扩大交易所历史上的产品系列的最大举措。Li and Lamba, whom the CEO had brought with him from J.P. Morgan, laid the groundwork for the deal at an off-site management meeting at the luxurious Sands Macao hotel on January 9, 2012. At the meeting the duo persuaded the HKEx board to endorse a more aggressive growth strategy, including a major push into commodities by supporting their bid to acquire the LME. Li and Lamba boarded a plane for London the next day and began an intensive six-month lobbying effort to win over the 70 shareholders that controlled the 135-year-old LME. They included big banks such as Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs Group and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

“There were widely divergent interests among LME’s shareholders, and the CEO and the chairman [Chow Chung Kong] both expended a lot of shoe leather going to meet each and every one of them, taking notes on what each of them wanted and selling them the vision of what HKEx wanted to do,” recalls James Fok, Li’s chief of staff and a former Citigroup banker.

The LME’s unique franchise and the attractions of its commodities-based business lured a number of deep-pocketed suitors. HKEx prevailed when the LME board endorsed its bid on June 15. CEO Martin Abbott, who continues to run the metal exchange, says the reason was simple: “HKEx offers strategic advantages in positioning LME for growth with Chinese markets and the rest of Asia.”

然而，胜利率先付出代价。最终标签几乎是分析师最初放在伦敦交流中的7亿英镑估计。In addition, Li agreed to maintain open-outcry ring trading — an integral part of the LME’s history but an increasingly anachronistic feature in today’s electronic era — at least through January 1, 2015. Li also promised to maintain the exchange’s physical metals warehouses and expand that network into China.

虽然有些分析师对环交易的未来是可疑的，但李坚持认为承诺是一个明智的;香港交易所没有现有的金属业务，不需要扰乱LME的运营。

“LME was a transformational deal,” says Lamba. “In one step we entered a new asset class and changed our significance to China. We are saying to the Chinese, ‘We are facilitating something you desperately need, which is offshore risk management of your critical commodity needs.’ ”

Some Chinese firms appear receptive to that pitch. Citic’s Yin says his securities firm is interested in seeking regulatory approval to trade directly on the LME; it currently relies on international banks to execute its trades on the metals exchange. “We do hope Citic Securities and Citic Futures can trade on LME, whether through our HKEx membership or directly,” he says. Currently, regulators allow only 28 state-owned metals and commodities firms to trade offshore, chief among them China Minmetals Non-ferrous Metals Co. and Aluminum Corp. of China, also known as Chinalco. Chinese futures companies are limited to trading on domestic venues like the Shanghai Metals Exchange.

李有一个双管齐下的战略来发展他的新子公司。他计划扩大LME的产品系列，以包括铁矿石等新商品，炼油煤炭和能源。他还打算在亚洲，尤其是中国的强大存在。这将包括在亚洲扩展LME的仓库网络，这是一种依赖于用户能够进行身体交付的商品交换的重要因素。随着时间的推移，他还希望在亚洲时区内制定清算安排和价格基准，最终使用人民币。“我们将支持LME努力为基础金属建立自己的清算室，并帮助为亚洲时区清算，资源清算和清算与亚洲有关的其他产品，”首席执行官表示。

Many analysts regard the purchase as a strategic coup. “The LME acquisition by HKEx should strengthen its brand on a number of levels,” says Anshuman Jaswal, a New  York–based senior analyst with Celent, a financial services research firm. “It will enable HKEx to provide LME’s capabilities to the fast-growing Chinese and Asia-Pacific markets by leveraging its local market expertise.” He adds that the deal also gives Li a beachhead in London. “HKEx can use this to roll out its services in not just commodities but also other asset classes to a more global audience and also direct more business toward HKEx in Hong Kong,” says Jaswal.

BESIDES EXPANDING INTO COMMODITIES, Li is looking to position HKEx as the leading gateway for investment flows into and out of China. The exchange’s H-share business was a natural way to play the mainland economy in the days when Beijing kept a tight lid on its capital account and barred foreigners from investing directly in Chinese stocks. Chinese authorities have been liberalizing slowly but surely in recent years, however, allowing foreigners to buy mainland stocks through the qualified foreign institutional investor program and encouraging the use of the renminbi for settling international trade. The volume of renminbi on deposit in Hong Kong swelled to 625 billion yuan in January. Li wants to provide investors with more ways of putting that money to work.

HKEx pioneered the first offshore renminbi-denominated IPO in 2011, when Hui Xian Real Estate Investment Trust, a REIT controlled by Hong Kong property tycoon Li Ka-shing, raised 10.5 billion yuan with a share offering. Although no companies have followed Hui Xian so far, exchange executives are confident that more companies will seek to tap the growing pool of renminbi in Hong Kong by offering shares there.

The Hong Kong exchange is also making a big play for renminbi futures. In September, HKEx launched the world’s first deliverable offshore renminbi futures contract. The $100,000 face-value CNH contracts are offered with one-, three- and 12-month delivery dates. Volume has been modest, but it is growing, rising from 217 contracts a day in September to a high of 550 a day in January before settling back to 352 in February.

Competition in this space is heating up. In February, CME’s Chicago Mercantile Exchange unveiled its own CNH futures contract, which is deliverable in Hong Kong for periods of up to three years. The contract is part of a suite of futures on currencies of the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — says KC Lam, the exchange’s Singapore-based Asia head of foreign exchange products. Like all CME products, BRIC currency futures are available for trading 24 hours a day, he adds. “We have a global CNH product, not just local,” Lam says. “Our clients are global.”

HKEx says it isn’t worried by CME’s offering. “We welcome the challenge,” says Fok. “We will look forward to hopefully proving them wrong and showing we are better. Competition is a fact of life. The RMB products are a big space. No doubt other people will want to get into it, but it is important we build on the first-mover advantage that our unique position in Hong Kong gives us.”

Other centers are gearing up for renminbi business. British officials are actively promoting London as a center for renminbi financing. The Bank of England recently struck a swap arrangement with the People’s Bank of China to support the business, and HSBC Holdings made the first renminbi bond offering in London. Singapore is also angling for a slice of the growing market. Li dismisses talk of competition, though, insisting that the efforts of other centers will expand the global market for products denominated in the Chinese currency rather than hurting Hong Kong. “We are more than delighted to see London become an international RMB center,” he says. “We have no interest in keeping this to Hong Kong. When there is increasing global need for RMB products, that ultimately will benefit Hong Kong and HKEx.”

Meanwhile, Li is looking to collaborate with mainland partners. Last year HKEx formed a joint venture with the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges, called China Exchanges Services Co., to develop index-linked products. In December the three exchanges formally launched the CES 120, the first cross-border index that covers HKEx-listed Chinese companies as well as companies listed on the mainland exchanges. In March it unveiled two breakouts from the CES 120: the CES China A80 Index, which contains the 80 mainland-listed A shares in the broader index, and the CES China HK Mainland Index, which contains the 40 Hong Kong–listed H shares in the CES 120.

To match the global reach of some of HKEx’s rivals, Li announced in February that the exchange had received regulatory approval to start after-hours futures trading and would begin the service on April 8. The move will allow Hang Seng Index and H-shares Index futures to be available for trading from 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. Hong Kong time; HKEx hopes this will attract European and U.S. investors.

其他多样化的努力都不太成功。去年，李签署了与巴西，俄罗斯，印度，中国和南非的主要交易所形成了金砖石交流联盟。联盟成员同意越来越讨论股票指数期货，该期货于去年开始在香港和金砖金市场进行交易。但是，交易已经过分了。自2012年3月推出，香港仅在巴西的IBovespa指数上只看了七个合同。

在另一个项目中，香港交易所领导香港政府为建立透明交易场所，为衍生品的算法建立透明的交易场所，名为OTC清算香港。据高管表示，该单位最初将重点关注利率和货币交换合同。

香港交易所享有香港唯一股权交易所运营商的法定保护。政府是最大的单一股东，5.8％，并任命六名董事会的13名董事。将其扩展到期货和商品确实将其与香港商品交易所的竞争，一个正在加热的。Mercantile Exchange的首席运营官威廉巴克郡已断言，香港交易所应失去股票垄断，现在它正在通过LME竞争商品。

专业的商品交易所成立t backing in 2008. It sold a 10 percent stake to Industrial & Commercial Bank of China in 2009 and began trading U.S. dollar–denominated gold and silver futures in 2011. The exchange, known as HKMEx, has attracted 35 members, many of them from China; precious-metals-trading volume has reached a total of 2.2 million contracts, worth $114.5 billion. Pending regulatory approval, HKMEx is set to launch more products later this year, including gold, silver and copper future contracts in renminbi. Executives are also planning to introduce futures and options on base metals, energy, agricultural products and currencies, including the renminbi.

香港交易所正在向金属和期货推出扩展，以3亿港元的技术投资。它正在开发一个名为HKEx ORION的新的高速交易平台，它将超过三倍容量，到每秒100,000个订单的峰值，并斜线延迟超过十倍，到100微秒。The system is housed in a state-of-the-art data center in Hong Kong’s Tseung Kwan O neighborhood, an hour’s drive from the Central business district, which is home to HKEx’s main offices at International Finance Center and its trading hall at Exchange Square. The new platform, which involves technology developed in-house and bought from third-party vendors, will help strengthen links between HKEx and the LME, potentially leading to the LME’s consolidation with Orion. “The key objective is to ensure HKEx is always competitive with other leading exchanges in the world in terms of our technology platform capabilities,” says Richard Leung, co-head of HKEx’s information technology division.

New technology, new markets, new products — it all amounts to a full agenda for Li, who is determined to be ready for the day when China fully opens its capital account to the world.

“有些人说，”你做了很多，也许太多，“这是我们战略的最大风险，”李说。“但我说最大的风险是当所有伟大的事情都会发生在香港，我们尚未准备好。我们需要确保我们准备好了。当然，我们没有保证成功，但我们可以说，如果我们不打算，我们绝对不能成功。“