The shares, which represent only a tiny proportion of the three companies’ issued shares, will no longer be traded on the NYSE after 16:00 New York time on Monday.
This puts the NYSE into the position it was in a few days ago after the exchange followed President Donald Trump’s executive order in November 2020 that identified all three as having connections with the Chinese military.
But then, late on Tuesday, the NYSE flipped, saying its decision was “in light of further consultation with relevant regulatory authorities”. It did not name the regulatory authorities.
And, 24 hours later, as chaos reigned in Washington DC a couple of hundred miles to the south-west, the NYSE went back to plan A, saying it was reflecting “new specific guidance” from Trump’s Treasury Department.
The London Stock Exchange said earlier this week it would also delist China Mobile and China Unicom, as they are secondary listings based on the NYSE listing.
Meanwhile there are reports in the UK — not so far confirmed or denied — that the London Stock Exchange will remove China Unicom and a number of other Chinese companies from the global equity indexes compiled by its FTSE Russell subsidiary. An announcement is expected today, said the Reuters news agency.
The companies involved are video security firm Hangzhou Hikvision, Nanjing Panda Electronics and chip maker SMIC, as well as China Unicom. All but SMIC are included in a pair of lists from the US Department of Defense, alleging they are “Communist Chinese military companies” under the terms of the National Defense Authorization Act of 1999.
