«Micro Connect» is self-funded along with partner Gary Zhang, chief executive the Hong Kong-listed Oriental Patron Financial Group.
Former Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing (HKEX) chief executive Charles Li Xiaojia, the architect behind mainland China and Hong Kong's deepened stock market ties, has launched a platform that aims to link foreign capital to small businesses across China, «Bloomberg» reported on Friday.
The platform offers institutional investors a way of making equity-like bets on a portfolio of small enterprises and gain a direct share of the revenue. International investors will be most likely use the wholly owned foreign enterprise avenue when making investments, and will be subject to capital controls.
Supporting China's Real Economy
Li is confident Micro Connect won't suffer from the wave of regulatory curbs that has recently hit the country's technology giants.
«We are not creating a systematic risk to China's financial system. We are spending on places where real financing should have been,» he told «Bloomberg»(behind paywall). He targets investing in 10,000 enterprises in the first year, and to expand to 100,000 in five years.
Just last month, finews.asia reported that Li was joining bond trading platform MarketAxess as a non-executive director, his first corporate job since leaving the bourse in December last year.
