Hong Kong stock exchange chief Nicolas Aguzin to step down

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Nicolas Aguzin is to leave his role as chief executive of Hong Kong’s stock market operator HKEX at the end of a three-year term during which the exchange has struggled to maintain its status as an important global destination for listings.

Aguzin, a former JPMorgan banker known as “Gucho”, has “informed the board that he will not seek reappointment at the end of his current contract in May 2024”, HKEX said in a statement on Friday.

He will be replaced by Bonnie Chan, the company’s co-chief operating officer, who has been given a three-year term.

The presence of Aguzin, an Argentine who does not speak Chinese and who had previously worked in Buenos Aires and New York, at the top of the company had been seen as a sign the exchange was keen to boost its standing on the global stage, rather than focus more narrowly on ties with mainland China.

But within weeks of his arrival at the exchange, Beijing launched an unprecedented regulatory crackdown on lucrative foreign listings by China’s technology groups. The move undercut a key source of investor enthusiasm for the city’s stock market.

HKEX’s share price has plunged 42 per cent since Aguzin’s term began in the depths of the coronavirus pandemic, during which both Hong Kong and mainland China were isolated from the wider financial world by harsh zero-Covid quarantine policies.

HKEX said it was grateful for Aguzin’s “contribution and leadership over the last two-and-a-half years against a particularly challenging macro backdrop, shaped by Covid and weak global markets”. Aguzin said it had been “the privilege of a lifetime” to run HKEX.

His departure comes during a broad overhaul at the exchange. Wilfred Yiu, HKEX’s co-chief operating officer alongside Chan, will become deputy chief executive, while chief financial officer Vanessa Lau will become co-chief operating officer in addition to her current role. The company’s chair Laura Cha is also due to reach the end of her term next year.

Aguzin’s successor Chan is a “hands-on” and “open minded” person, said Robert Lee, a lawmaker representing the city’s financial services sector. “I find her to be very receptive to a lot of ideas that the [financial services] industry presented to her in the past.”

The market’s benchmark Hang Seng index has dropped 16.6 per cent this year. The bourse’s third-quarter results showed revenues from trading activity fell 10 per cent from a year ago, while stock listing fees slipped by a fifth. Net profit rose 30 per cent for the period on the back of strong investment income and derivatives trading volumes.

India’s National Stock Exchange is poised to take Hong Kong’s spot among the world’s largest trading venues, the Financial Times reported this week.

In August, Hong Kong’s government set up an external taskforce to make recommendations on boosting stock market listings and trading activity in Hong Kong. It recommended trying to persuade more companies based in the Middle East and south-east Asia to list in Hong Kong. 

Data from Dealogic shows funds raised from initial public offerings in Hong Kong are down almost 40 per cent from a year ago at about $5bn, compared with an annual average of $37bn during the previous half-decade.

Additional reporting by Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong