Here are the factors that affected China's 2015 luxury market, and what the company should focus on handling well. (Photo : Reuters)
Hundsun Technologies Inc., the financial information technology company managed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. founder Jack Ma, has rejected on July 13, Monday, criticism from local media blaming the platform for China's stock market rout, Reuters reported.
"It's not objective or rational to say that HOMS was the major force of the stock market turmoil," Hundsun said during the filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Launched in May 2012, the HOMS cloud-based system was initially designed to help small and medium-sized asset management firms. Since China's stock rally started, "gray market lenders" or off-market financing firms, however, used the platform as it allowed speculators to borrow up to 10 times the starting capital for up to 17-percent annualized interest.
The report said that when China's stock market filled up in the past four weeks, investors with excessive leverage sold their shares to meet "margin calls" that sent prices downward and resulted in a vicious selling cycle.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission, however, said that off-market margin financing and sell-offs that used the HOMS system were merely "a small fraction" of total transaction value. Despite this, a number of local media criticized the HOMS platform for driving a highly leveraged bull run and then activating the free fall.
In its statement on July 13, Hundsun said that only 30.1 billion yuan was forced-sold on its HOMS platform from June 15 to July 10, which accounts for 0.1 percent of the total transaction volume during the period.
Miniu98.com, a peer-to-peer margin lending platform founded by a former Hundsun senior executive and operating via the HOMS system, said that it will stop offering funds that use stock as collaterals. Recently, the market regulator has renewed its crackdown on gray-market margin financing.
According to a Hundsun filing, Alibaba's financial arm Ant Financial also vowed to invest no less than 40 million yuan within the next six months, buying shares in Hundsun from the secondary market to stabilize the stock price,.
After losing nearly 60 percent since June 11, Hundsun shares leaped by its daily trading limit of 10 percent on July 13, Monday morning.
