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21 November 2001
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| Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited ("Cheung
Kong") announced today the launch of iMarkets Limited ("iMarkets"), a company
which will provide a client-driven online B2B platform in structured
investment products (SIPs) for institutional investors and financial
institutions. |
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| An SIP is mostly a composite of basic financial
building blocks such as options, bonds and stocks. The special
feature of SIPs is that each product can easily be structured
according to specific risk and return needs of investors. |
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| iMarkets
holds a registered securities dealer license issued by the Securities
and Futures Commission. The company provides services for investment
banks, securities brokerages, private banks, commercial banks
and fund managers. |
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| iMarkets'
innovative platform allows product issuers to provide their
investment products’ information online, thus facilitating
the process of effecting real-time price comparison, price quotation,
matching and transaction for financial institutions. Moreover,
the financial institutions can make use of iMarkets'
structuring capability to customize the most appropriate SIP
to match the client's needs. |
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| According to the CEO of iMarkets,
Mr. Patrick Wong, "iMarkets is currently
providing two kinds of products, namely Equity Linked Notes
and Principal Guaranteed Notes. Through our electronic trading
platform, financial institutions can now get all relevant information
of the participating issuers’ products. This enables the
saving of an enormous amount of time on the tedious and time
consuming process of obtaining real time price comparison and
quotations; with iMarkets,
institutions can get the best quote in the market and then match
and trade instantly." |
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| Mr. Wong continued, "Besides selecting from
existing investment products, iMarkets'
proprietary technologies also allow financial institutions to
tailor-make the most suitable and effective investment products
for their clients according to their risk and return requirements.
We believe that this can greatly enhance returns, effectively
'turning complexity into advantage'." |
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| iMarkets'
innovative, efficient, straight through processing concept has
drawn much support from financial institutions, many of which
have agreed to participate in iMarkets (please
see the attached for the list of companies). |
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| iMarkets
is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cheung Kong. Mr. Edmond Ip,
Executive Director of Cheung Kong and Chairman of iMarkets,
said, "As the market becomes more familiar and knowledgeable
with the different types of investment products, investors have
become very interested in SIPs. The current low interest rate
situation further drives funds into the SIP markets. It is expected
that the demand for SIPs will grow at a very rapid pace. iMarkets' edge lies in the fact that it transforms the investment
products market from a product-driven one to a one which is
client-driven. Another unique feature of iMarkets
is its advantage of efficiently providing the best quotes available
in the market." |
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| "iMarkets
has created new opportunities for issuers, as well as institutional
investors, and has expanded the room for the creation of new
investment products. We are confident that there is great development
potential for iMarkets,"
Mr Ip concluded. |
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