Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (0388.HK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to HKEX 2023 Full Year Results Analyst Presentation. Today, we are very pleased to have our Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Nicolas Aguzin and our Group CFO, Ms. Vanessa Lau. Gucho and Vanessa will first give a presentation about our business and strategy. And afterwards, we are happy to take some of your questions. With no further ado, over to you, Gucho.

Thank you very much, Ricky. So good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We're pleased to be presenting our full year results of 2023. First, I will give a quick overview, and then Vanessa, our CFO, will share more details on the numbers. And after that, I'll be back to discuss some of the business highlights. For 2023, we're reporting strong results, demonstrating core business strengths and resiliency despite the challenging macroeconomic environment. We recorded our second best annual revenue and profit ever, second only to the exceptional result of 2021. Headline revenue and other income increased 11% year-on-year in 2023. Profit attributable to shareholders increased 18% year-on-year during the same period. I will let Vanessa talk through these numbers in more detail shortly. But first, I'd like to highlight that 2023 was also a year of significant strategic progress for HKEX. Initiatives we implemented include: the expansion of the list of eligible stocks in Stock Connect with over 1,000 additional names included in Northbound Stock Connect and the inclusion of primary listed international companies in Southbound Stock Connect. The introduction of a new specialist technology company listing chapter, the launch of Swap Connect, the launch of the HKD-RMB Dual Counter, the launch of FINI, a digitalized IPO platform that shortens the time from IPO pricing to trading, the opening of our New York and London offices and the announcement of our plan to launch China treasury bond futures. All of these continue to reinforce HKEX's vital role in connecting China and the world. At the same time, we have continued to strengthen our partnerships internationally and in Mainland China. We signed MOUs with Saudi Arabia's Tadawul, the Indonesia Stock Exchange, the Beijing Stock Exchange as well as the cities of Ningbo and Nanjing. This strategic progress was set against weak market sentiment. cash market volumes during the period were down 16% year-on-year. However, our diversification strategy is paying off. We saw an exceptionally strong performance across the Hong Kong derivatives, fixed income, ETPs and commodity markets. We saw record high average daily volume of 1.4 million derivative contracts, up 4% year-on-year and open interest up 8% year-on-year. Also, our ETP market in 2023 recorded an all-time high volume with average daily turnover up 17% year-on-year. In fixed income, the notional amount of swaps cleared increased almost 120%. And in FX products, U.S. dollar CNH futures contracts saw a doubling in trading volumes over the past year. Our commodities business delivered strong results with LME average daily volumes up 11% compared with the previous years and open interest up 25% year-on-year. Revenue from our data and connectivity business also reached a record level, up 4% year-on-year. Market sentiment will continue to be affected by macroeconomic and geopolitical factors, but we remain cautiously optimistic about the year ahead. I will discuss our core business strength and diversification efforts and a host of important strategic initiatives in more detail shortly. But first, let me hand over to Vanessa to go through the results, and over to you, Vanessa.

Thank you, Gucho, afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us virtually. I am Vanessa Lau. I would now like to share with you highlights of our 2023 financial results. HKEX continued to demonstrate robustness and resilience despite the challenging macroeconomic environment and the softer cash market. Despite headline ADT being down 16% versus prior year, 2023 revenue and profit were the second highest on record, ranking just after the exceptional results of 2021. 2023 revenue and other income was 11% higher than in 2022. The increase was mainly driven by record net investment income, benefiting from strong derivatives volumes and higher LME volumes. Our internally managed funds recorded significant growth in net investment income under the high interest rate environment. And the external portfolio saw net fair value gains of $421 million. This was partly offset by the decrease in trading, clearing and listing fees from lower sentiment-driven headline ADT and lower number of newly listed derivative warrants and CBBCs. For the full year, profit after tax was $11.9 billion and earnings per share was $9.37, up 18% against 2022. The Board has declared a 2023 2nd interim dividend of $3.91 per share. Together with the first interim dividend of $4.50, the 2023 full year dividend is $8.41 per share, up 18% against 2022. Looking at the fourth quarter, headline ADT was down 28% against Q4 2022 to $91 billion. But LME volumes saw a strong 29% increase against the corresponding period. Coupled with higher net investment income from margin and clearing house funds, core business revenue was down only 5%. Corporate funds investment income was 18% lower due to a nonrecurring fair value loss on non-core unlisted equity investments, but the loss was partly offset by the higher gains of the external portfolio. As a result, Q4 total revenue and other income was $4.9 billion, down by 7%. Profit after tax was $2.6 billion and earnings per share was $2.05, both down 13% against Q4 2022. Turning to the next page where we focus on the detailed financials for the full year. Although headline ADT was down 16% versus prior year, our diversification strategy in recent years is paying off with our ETP and derivatives trading volumes reaching record highs and commodities market performing strongly in 2023. In particular, the Hang Seng TECH Index Futures, the physically settled options on futures contracts and the RMB currency futures were the major contributors to the growth in the derivatives market, reflecting the increased popularity of our recently launched derivatives products, as well as cross-product trading activities. It is also encouraging to see a healthy growth in LME trading volumes with ADV up 11% from 2022. Northbound Stock Connect trading also saw solid growth with ADT 8% higher than 2022, benefiting from the expansion of eligible stocks in March 2023. Driven by record net investment income and increased LME volumes, total revenue was up 11% against prior year. OpEx was up by 7%, reflecting our continuous investment in talent, infrastructure and operational excellence. As a result, net profit was up 18%, a strong performance in a subdued cash market environment. Next, we look at the Q4 2023 financials against the previous quarter. Total revenue was down 4% and profit after tax was down 12% against Q3 and reflect a lower trading and clearing fees from the 8% decrease in headline ADT, the nonrecurring fair value loss on unlisted equity investments, which was partly offset by the gains of the external portfolio. OpEx was 16% higher due to higher staff costs, IT maintenance and security infrastructure costs and other seasonal increases in expenditure. Moving on to look at the trend line. You can see that we continue to follow a general upward trend of the last few years for both revenue and profit, with 2023 results consistent with long-term trend levels. Despite the lower headline cash market ADT in 2023, the impact was more than offset by the significant growth in investment income under the high interest rate environment. HKEX continues to maintain an attractive EBITDA margin reflecting the successful diversification of our business in recent years and our continued cost discipline. Next, we take a look at our investment income. Net investment income comprises of internally managed corporate funds, margin and clearing house funds and an actively managed external portfolio. Total net investment income in 2023 was close to $5 billion, compared with $1.4 billion in 2022. Benefiting from the interest rate environment, the internally managed investment income more than doubled to $4.5 billion in 2023. The external portfolio recorded fair value gains of $421 million compared with losses of $486 million in 2022, reflecting the improved performance of global equities and fixed income markets and the proactive management of the portfolio. Lastly, let's take a look at our operating expenses. OpEx was up 7% in 2023 compared with the prior year reflecting inflationary increases and our continued investments in existing and new talent in infrastructure, customer and operational excellence. To summarize, despite a challenging macro and fragile geographical backdrop, HKEX's core business continues to show its strength and resilience. The increasingly diverse business continues to perform well and remain strongly placed. We are optimistic that as market sentiment improves, we are well placed to capitalize on Hong Kong's unique role as an East/West super connector and on our unrivaled China advantage and we will continue to strengthen the attractiveness and competitiveness of our markets and our offerings. With that, I'll hand back to Gucho for our business and strategic update.

Thank you, Vanessa. As I mentioned earlier, the 2023 results are our second best ever. This demonstrates our continued resiliency and relevance underpinned by our diversification strategy and focused strategic development. Our diversification strategy helped mitigate lower cash market volumes as seen in our record volume highs in the derivatives and ETP markets. The record volumes of contracts reflects a wider selection of products in the ecosystem as well as sustained demand for risk management instruments in terms -- in times of volatility. The Hong Kong ETF market went from strength to strength in 2023. Average daily turnover increased 20% to almost HKD 12 billion, an all-time high. OTC clearing notional amounts reached a record high at nearly USD 500 billion. That is 120% increase and it is mostly due to the launch of Swap Connect in May. Stock Connect revenue totaled HKD 2.2 billion, contributing 11% of the group's total revenue. Key drivers were the inclusion of ETFs in Stock Connect and the expanded eligibility list of names in Northbound Stock Connect. The Northbound average daily turnover reached CNY 108 billion mainly driven by the Stock Connect expansion, which added over 1,000 names that global investors can now trade through HKEX. And trading under Northbound Bond Connect reached record new highs with average daily turnover of CNY 40 billion, which is up 24% year-on-year. Our IPO pipeline remains robust with more than 70 applications as of December 31, 2023. In total, we saw 73 IPOs, raising HKD 46.3 billion during the year. Although the number of IPOs is down 19% compared with the previous year, there were signs of good momentum in the last quarter of 2023. That quarter alone saw 26 listings raising HKD 21.7 billion constituting nearly half of all funds raised during the year. Now looking more closely at derivatives and commodities, the group's derivatives product suite saw record highs in trading volumes and enhancements made to further boost market liquidity. I mentioned that our derivatives market had a strong year, particularly the HKEX, MSCI Futures and Options Products saw open interest surpassing 100,000 contracts for the first time ever in November. Meanwhile, key products such as options on futures and Seng TECH Index Futures, the U.S. dollar, CNH Futures set daily trading records during the year. In the second half of 2023, HKEX enhanced the block trade facility in the derivatives market and raise position limits for single stock options, single stock futures and U.S. dollar CNH contracts. These changes aim to boost market liquidity and give investors more flexibility in managing their market exposures while maintaining risk management. We also closed out the year with a strong recovery in the group's commodities business, led by strength in nickel and lead displayed a part in boosting LME trading chargeable average daily volumes of metal contracts were up 11% in the last year. And we're very pleased with the positive outcome of the judicial review in relation to the events in the nickel market in March 2022. This has enabled us to put even more focus on implementing important infrastructure enhancements for the long-term growth of our metals market. This year, we also built upon our Connect story as it continues to develop and expand. As mentioned, ETF Connect and increased eligibility in Northbound Stock Connect contributed to robust Stock Connect growth. The expansion of over 1,000 stocks now covers roughly 90% of the A share market capitalization. The expansion started on the 13th of March. By the end of the year, there was a 22% increase in the average daily turnover of Northbound trading. Additionally, Asia's first Saudi Arabia ETF was introduced last year, providing investors with unique access to Middle East markets. Now moving on, let's have a look at the progress we have in executing against our 3 strategic imperatives: our first, connecting China and the world, leverages our unique position as the most international city in China and the most Chinese city outside the Mainland. During the year, we made significant enhancements to our connectivity, our trading structure and our product offerings. New initiatives such as Swap Connect and the proposed launch of China treasury bond futures further elevate our position as China's go-to offshore risk management and fundraising center. Our second imperative is connecting capital with opportunities. To this end, we have been building the attractiveness of our primary market, enhancing market structure, expanding our product ecosystem and growing our client ecosystem. In particular, the consultation on severe weather trading is part of ongoing plans to make Hong Kong's markets, more attractive and competitive to regional and international investors and bringing HKEX in line with its global peers. The launch of the HKD-RMB Dual Counter Model and the Dual Counter Market Making Program in June was another important development in Hong Kong. These programs support Hong Kong as the leading offshore renminbi hub while adding to our already expansive range of renminbi-denominated products. They also laid the groundwork for enabling the trading of the renminbi counter in Southbound Stock Connect. Finally, let me touch on our third strategic imperative, connecting today with tomorrow. In preparing our organization for the future, we have 2 focuses. The first focus was modernizing our operations. modernizing our infrastructure and evolving from an infrastructure-led model to a client-led model. A few moments ago, I mentioned our new IPO settlement platform, FINI. Another example is HKEX sign-ups, a new settlement platform for Northbound Stock Connect, which will standardize and streamline post-trade workflows. The second focus of connecting today with tomorrow is putting sustainability at the heart of our business strategy. In 2023, we accelerated our sustainability journey by pledging to reach carbon neutrality by 2024 and Net Zero by 2040, 10 years ahead of our original target. And the LME continued to demonstrate the sustainability leadership of the global metals industry. It made enhancements to LME Passport and ensured its listed brands met the deadline for requirements set out in the LME policy on responsible sourcing back in 2021. So to wrap up, for HKEX 2023 was defined by 3 things: a challenging macroeconomic and geopolitical backdrop, strong results and important strategic delivery. Looking ahead, we expect the uncertainties of the macro landscape to persist and continue to shape market sentiment. However, we're confident in the resiliency of our business and our ability to capture the medium- to long-term opportunities, which remain significant. We're pleased to see a strong start for our derivatives market. And we're confident that recently launched products and the strength in currency future contracts will continue to drive growth. The growth in our commodities business in late 2023 has also persisted into this year. As of the 27th of February, nickel trading on the LME was up 63% and the overall average daily volume of trading was up 25% year-on-year. We're also excited about the increasing broad portfolio of markets, products and opportunities we now offer to investors around the world and the positive progress we are making on our strategy. We remain prudent in the management of our business and cautiously optimistic about our outlook. This will be the last time that I present HKEX's financial results as I pass the mantle of CEO to my colleague, Bonnie Chan, I am confident that HKEX will continue to steer its markets in Hong Kong towards medium and long-term opportunities. It has been a tremendous privilege and an honor to be leading this great organization over the past 3 years. I am very proud of everything that was accomplished during my tenure and I would like to thank my colleagues, our customers, our friends and all our stakeholders around the world. And I especially want to thank you, our friends of the investment community for your generous support throughout my time here. I look forward to seeing HKEX continue progressing as we build the marketplace of the future. Thank you very much, and we're now happy to take questions.

Thank you very much, Gucho, Vanessa, for your sharing. And now we are open for some questions. So operator, could you please give the audience instruction how to raise questions either via webcast or audio. Thank you. Operator, over to you for Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] First question comes from the line of Gurpreet Sahi from Goldman Sachs.

Gurpreet from Goldman. If I can have 2, please, 1 for Vanessa and 1 for Gucho, please. First for Gucho. It was great having you lead this group as the ambassador for not just Hong Kong Exchange but Hong Kong. Looking back over 3 years, if you would with benefit of hindsight characterized like what would you have done differently? Is it like invest heavily in technology or try to have more relationships with China? Or maybe form more relationships outside what would you have done differently would be way to hear? And then for Vanessa, the cost, of course, stand out from the results and on the negative side, I have to say, unfortunately so. It seems that the normal seasonality in the fourth quarter was not repeated, and this was unusually high seasonality with the fourth quarter cost being materially higher than the third quarter. So how do you want us to model? I know that you have previously said high single digit with somewhere 7% as a magic number for full year cost growth and that was there for this year also, but then this year was quite odd in that the core revenues were not growing and the investment income was growing. So how do you model -- want to model us going forward, especially for this year, where I think the consensus has very low growth for cost? And I don't think core revenues are showing much hope in terms of volume growth, et cetera.

Okay. So maybe I'll start Gurpreet. Thank you very much for your comment and your questions as well. I mean when we decided to embark in our strategy, we were thinking about the very long term and not so focused on what would happen in the short term. So clearly, we did have a lot of headwinds in terms of global macro, in terms of flash points of geopolitics and issues around the world, interest rates that were increasing way more than expected by anyone at the beginning of my tenure and my mandate and inflation and, of course, the COVID situation and all those things. So a lot of things that happened, but our mind was set in the long term. And what we thought is about making sure that we improve both our connectivity with China and our connectivity with the world, they're 2 things. So I mean, obviously, we've had more connectivity initiatives in the last 3 years that we've had since the introduction of Stock Connect pretty much. So there's been a lot of things, whether it's ETF Connect, I mean, the Swap Connect, the inclusion of more than 1,000 names in Northbound Stock Connect, the inclusion of international companies in Southbound Stock Connect. And we have more things obviously in the future as we introduce government bond futures, which was announced, and we're in the process with the introduction of the Dual Counter. All these things allowed us to be a lot more connected with China. And I think that's the right strategy because that's when we have our -- that's where we have our competitive advantage. However, at the same time, we need the international investor base that's so important for our markets win both, we need that connectivity 2 way. And so what we've done around expanding our presence in London, we're opening the office being closer to the clients, expanding our presence in New York, getting like a special relationship, let's say, in Saudi Arabia, and doing our agreement with Tadawul and also in Southeast Asia with Indonesia and just increasing our profile around the world, whether it's in Davos, FII and all the things that we have done, those things were very, very, very important and allowed us to diversify our business. And I'm very glad that we put so much effort on the derivative side, launching the Hang Seng TECH Index, launch Options and Futures, developing new contracts and also all the effort put on ETFs, that was very, very important because as interest rates increased, the fact that we put so much emphasis on the derivatives. Remember, a lot of our, let's say, investment income comes from our margin funds and our investment -- our interest income is reflected as derivatives grow, we have more of that. So that's been great. But at the same time, we did not forget our infrastructure. Our infrastructure, we invested a lot in a risk infrastructure. We have an excellent risk team infrastructure, very strong first, second, third line. We enhanced our listing regime by issuing a pack regime, and 18-C regime, GEM reforms, all those things. We work on the micro structures needed in the market, whether it's introducing sign-ups, Phoenix, expanding web hosting NGRM, which is the next-generation risk management process that we had for the cash market. And through all this being done at the same time, we had super stable operations. We had no issues, no major outages, nothing. So that's like a pretty remarkable. And we've also been investing in preparing for the future in terms of our derivatives platform, in terms of our like custody business, we're going to be doing more and more. But that's a multi -- those are multiyear initiatives. Now in this tough context, our brand and our reputation, it's pretty good. I mean, I think that we've been close to all the stakeholders being present globally was very important. And also, I'm very proud of what we did around our people. Our attrition when I came here was way over 20% and now it's under 10%. And so we see a lot of improvement in terms of like the people itself. And the fact that we managed to do this transition with all internal people, this is a testament of how much growth we've seen internally in our management, in our leadership and so I'm very, very, very happy about that. So it's pretty hard for me to say if I had done something very, very different. Obviously, I had a lot of things that I learned throughout the process. But I think it was the right approach, the correct emphasis. And despite all the negative things, here, we are showing on a combined basis, the last 3 years were by far, by far, the best 3 years financially that exchange ever had in 1 of the most difficult environments that you can imagine.

This is Vanessa. Thank you for your question on OpEx. Our Q4 OpEx was up 12% from the Q4 of prior year and it's a number of different contributing factors. So first of all, we had higher staff costs. We had increased head count from a year ago and also the typical year-end payroll adjustments, which really reflects our commitment to the investment in talent, and we talk about both new and existing staff that we have to continue to retain to deliver on a host of strategic initiatives that we have been able to launch during 2023. And then another area that we have invested more operating expenses is in IT. We have -- because we launched a lot of the projects, therefore, there was also the post-launch IT expenses the licensing fees that we have to incur. And as we move towards more cloud-based applications, a lot of that is actually recorded as OpEx rather than CapEx and also during the end of the year, we also spent a bit more on the information security. And as you know, cybersecurity and protecting ourselves against threats, it's getting more and more important in this day and age. And a third category of increase was very simple. It was post-COVID versus a year ago, our business traveling has actually gone up. On the professional fees, you would have seen that actually we had lower professional fees versus a year ago because, hopefully, we're getting to the end of the nickel lawsuit. And we did spend a little bit more on project strengthen, which is our efforts to look at our LME business model and strengthen our controls and therefore, put it on a much stronger foundation going forward. And as I said, it's very encouraging to see that. With all the things happening on LME, we're able to see volumes go up by 29%, which is not a small number. And hopefully, all the work that we're putting in place on project strengthen is going to bear -- continue to bear fruit in the coming year as well as the 13% fee increase that we've managed to implement. And I would say, overall, don't look at the cost in a single quarter. the way we would manage is look at more the longer-term trend. And as you know, you've been following us for a long time. We have always managed to keep a cost discipline, being very cognizant of what the top line is doing and therefore maintain quite an attractive EBITDA margin, and we would continue to strive to do that going forward.

Thank you Gucho and Vanessa. Next question, please.

Next question comes from the line of Charles Zhou from UBS.

Gucho, we wish you all the best in the next chapter. I have 2 questions. The first 1 is considering you mentioned about current macro and also political environment. So we would like to know what will be the strategy to boost the market vagrancy and liquidity? Do you have any detailed measures? And also, can you please maybe share the pipeline of the key policy initiative, both the primary and secondary markets for this year and also beyond? And also what about can you maybe just discuss more about the detailed plan for the international expansion? The second question is related to the LME case. The High Court has recognized the lawfulness of the LME's nickel trade cancellation last November. And we understand the investor also plans to appeal the court's ruling. So how would the company view the process? And is there any previous case that we could refer to?

So let me just address the question in general, given that there are a lot of questions about liquidity in the future. I'm going to ask also Wilfred to chime in here. But we're certainly working very hard in terms of like making sure that we assess our market microstructure very carefully and we work on all areas that can make the market better. Let me address the LME question for a second, and then I'll pass it on to Wilfred to focus on the rest of the question. This is an area that I feel very, very good about. I mean, as Vanessa said, I mean you have volumes at whatever way you look at it, open interest or actually volume traded, it's up 25%, 30%. And then you look at nickel that just like a few months ago, people were saying, "Oh, it's the end of LME and its potential on nickel." And now we see volumes in nickel up 60% and the level of nickel and the level of open interest. It's almost like getting to the level that it's an all-time record almost. I mean, it's some days, it's like above the average all-time record. But it's remarkable that, that happened in such a short period of time. On top of that, this helped LME implement some very needed and really important infrastructure changes that will make the market more solid for the future, stronger, more resilient and more efficient. And so I think that this is one of the areas that I'm most optimistic about, hopeful about, I think it's -- the team is doing a great job. On top of that, there's a lot of changes that are being planned for the market. And as it relates to the lawsuit itself, we were very pleased to have won -- we had like pretty much a clean sweep. We won on all counts, all counts. I mean, it was like a very, very strong ruling in favor of LME. So LME, of course, and ourselves were very, very confident about the strength and the right direction of our actions, and we are going to continue defending this. One of the parties involved decided to appeal the ruling, so we'll continue vigorously defending. The other party decided not to do it. I mean -- and so we'll just have to keep working on this. But obviously, we were very, very pleased by the clarity of the ruling and the detailed amount of work done in that case to get to that result.

This is Wilfred. I'm going to touch on a bit on the liquidity and how to improve liquidity. First and foremost, as we have studied in the Hong Kong markets that are quite a few microstructure initiatives that we have put in place. that we are planning to be implementing to facilitate a more efficient trading in our marketplace, just to name a few about self-managed prevention, which is a mechanism to allow a more systematic way of permitting, trading to respond quicker to order book and market data change and preventions of also obviously trading parts from trading to each other. It belongs to the same beneficiary. Now those kind of mechanisms helped enhance the market to trade more efficiently, better price discovery. And there are a few other studies that we are conducting at the moment, including the spread table in our cash markets and orders. Now away from the micro structure. I think the second area that we always talk about is about our product micro -- product ecosystem itself. And there are a lot, a lot of leverage that we get from our cross-product ecosystem that allow more efficient trading across them in a more seamless way. So there are quite a lot of those developments that we're still enhancing to just put forth ourselves at a more appealing product issuance center for Hong Kong itself both on exchange and also off exchange. That's the second area around product ecosystem. Third area is around client engagement, investor engagement, trading community engagement. We have been very, very proactive as COVID traveling behind us to very proactively engage a lot of the investor communication also trading on communications to make sure that we bring along a -- not only a sufficient amount of market makers, liquidity providers to Hong Kong itself, but also attracting more diversified investor base from all over the world. Actually, I have seen meaningful interest coming from Asia, meaningful interest from Middle East and Europe as well and also some of the port of trading from the U.S. So I think we would need to increase those engagements. As you know, we have a London office open, our New York office open that helps us in actually getting a lot of those dialogues going. And I think all this effort when we put them together is going to make any meaningful improvement in development in our markets.

Thank you, Gucho and Wilfred. Next question on the line, please.

Next question comes from Shengbo Tang from Nomura.

And my question is regarding checking overseas companies to ministry in Hong Kong, it seems that Hong Kong Exchange has already included Saudi Arabia and Indonesia Stock Exchange in the east of recatalyzed stock exchange last year. So my question is when we expect to see companies primarily listed on the main market of those exchange to seek secondary listing in Hong Kong?

Okay. Maybe I'll just take it. And I don't know, then after Bonnie, maybe you can add anything that you may think. So the agreements with Tadawul and IDX involve facilitating companies that may want to do a secondary offering in Hong Kong. And that -- it's a process to streamline the requirements and it relies on home market regulations and the home market exchanges to a great degree. Now we've seen some companies last year, as you know, like in particular, there was 1 significant company from Indonesia that listed in our market last year. So we were very pleased to see companies from Southeast Asia coming to the market. The environment, as you well know, it's rather challenging right now. So I think that we have to work -- we have to wait for a time when the environment is a little bit more constructive. What we're doing at this point is just setting the infrastructure for the -- when the market comes back, we're very, very well positioned. I can't give you an exact time of when a company -- we'll see companies from those markets coming in. But what we're trying to do is to facilitate the infrastructure so that it's ready when companies have a desire to make it here.

Bonnie here. Maybe just to supplement what Gucho has just said. I think it's important also to bear in mind that whether or not we have recognized the stock exchange as a recognized stock exchange for secondary listing purpose. It's not a prerequisite for companies in those overseas markets to list in Hong Kong. What I mean is if they would choose instead to list on a primary basis, then regardless of whether their home market is a recognized stock exchange, they can still do so. So that's the first point I want to clarify. Secondly, just like Gucho said, we don't have perfect clarity as to when these companies will come. But what we are doing, and Wilfred alluded to it earlier, is that we are putting a lot of resources into marketing efforts in all those markets where we believe there is a strong interest for companies in those locations to explore our Hong Kong listing. So the Middle East as well as Southeast Asia is certainly an area where we're very focused on in terms of our issuer marketing activities.

Thank you, Gucho and Bonnie for the detailed explanation. In the interest of time, we can take 1 more question. It will be on the line from Shujin from Jefferies. So what is the potential impact to HKEX from the regulatory tightening for [ core funds ] trading A shares?

Okay. I'll take a crack at that. So -- it's -- we still don't have like full clarity on how this will be implemented. So we're waiting to see like the details on how this will be implemented. Clearly, investors are always very alert to changes in regulations that may impact their investments and to the extent that they are doing those investments through Northbound in some instances, may have an effect. I mean, some of them, like for example, the lower of the trading fee and the lower of the stamp duty is things that benefited them and others other requirements may be a little bit different than what they're used to. And so, I don't have like a full assessment of that. In general, I would say that investors prefer to have like a system that they're familiar with. And at this point, we don't know exactly how this will play out. So I don't know if you have any comment Wilfred on this?

Sure. Maybe [indiscernible] on some of my thoughts on this. I think first and foremost, I want to more focus on the Hong Kong market itself. Hong Kong has a very diversified and deep liquidity pool from all the different type of investors and trading committee and we welcome, obviously, all different investors to come to Hong Kong to transact in our vibrant market. And these specific regulation changes, they happen from time to time in different markets as we have seen and it will go through its own normal cycles, and these are only reasonable to be expected. But in [indiscernible] in Hong Kong, I think what we have is actually a very consistent regulatory framework, and we provide the open gateway, obviously, for a lot of different flows coming off from more around the world. So I think it's important to realize, obviously, Hong Kong, we maintain that opportunities, and we remain very engaging with all the different sort of trading community, investors all around the world.

Thank you, Gucho and Wilfred. So this marks the end of today's session. And thank you, everyone, for joining us virtually today. We hope to meet and speak with you again very soon, and have a good evening or good day ahead. Thank you.