A followup on GLG Corp

This is going to be a quick post.

I wrote about GLG Corp (GLE) last week. One thing that has kept me perplexed is: Why did they list in Australia? Australia ASX has arguably more strigent listing regulations than SGX in Singapore. (This was one of the contentions in the ASX-SGX merger talk back in late 2010.) Why the trouble? And what's the point of raising so little capital here? The CEO and founder still controls 75% of the company.  They were not in here for the money. But what?

Yesterday I met up with a Singaporean friend. He read my GLE post. He made this casual comment while he was cuddling his one-year-old daughter in his arm: "These people were here for the status in order to attract employees back in Singapore."

Wow, what a revelation! This makes a lot of sense. This fits the general mentality in Asian culture that status is important.

This taught me two things:

1. Local know-hows are all important.
2. Scuttlebutt is all important.