Chinese Crackdown Isn’t Chilling Hong Kong’s Hot Financial Core

Hong Kong people love to stir-fry. Not just food—it’s the Chinese term for investing in stocks. And about 1 in 5 residents were ready to fry up a piece of the initial public offering of Ant Group Co., Jack Ma’s fintech company, before its early November listing was scuttled at the last minute by Chinese regulators. It was a crushing blow to what was expected to be the biggest IPO ever. But within days, investors were eyeing other listings on the menu.

While it may not be apparent from the headlines about China’s crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong, there’s been an easy-money frenzy of late. On Nov. 11, the same day opposition lawmakers resigned en masse to protest the disqualification of four of them for insufficient loyalty to China, Bright Future Technology Holdings Ltd., a Shenzhen-based mobile advertising company, debuted on the Hong Kong exchange. Its shares popped 32%. And more are on the way, enough that listings are still on track to beat last year’s $40 billion total, even without the Hong Kong portion of the Ant offering, which has been postponed at least until next year.