NYSE to delist three Chinese telecom stocks, as US considers move on Alibaba and Tencent

The New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday announced that it will move forward with the delisting of the three Chinese telecom companies China Mobile (NYSE: CHL; HK:00941), China Telecom (NYSE: CHA; HK:00728), and China Unicom (NYSE: CHU; SH:600050; HK:00762), following an executive order from President Donald Trump, reversing an earlier decision not to delist them.

Trading of shares in the Chinese telecom carriers will end at 4:00 a.m. ET on Monday, NYSE said, after receiving “new specific guidance” from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Tuesday. Last week, the bourse announced to delist the three companies to comply with the President’s order from November that seeks to bar US investment in companies with links to the Chinese military intelligence and security apparatuses.

US officials meanwhile also consider prohibiting Americans from investing in Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings over their alleged ties to the military, theWall Street Journal reported. Tencent and Alibaba are China’s two most valuable publicly listed companies, with a combined market capitalization of over USD 1.3 trillion.

Chinese companies have long turned to American markets for capital and international prestige, raising at least USD 144 billion over more than two decades, according to Bloomberg.

Mr. Trump signed another executive order on Tuesday banning eight Chinese apps, including CamScanner, QQ Wallet, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate, WeChat Pay, WPS Office, and Alipay, claiming that they can access private information from their users.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday that Beijing hopes the US will respect the market and rule of law, and do things conducive to upholding order in the global financial markets.

The shares of the US-listed Chinese companies are dropping in Hong Kong trading on Thursday morning. China Mobile is down 6.97% to HKD 43.4, China Telecom is losing 8.48% to HKD 2.05, and China Unicom fell 8.76% to HKD 4.58. Tencent and Alibaba are down 4.44% and 4.17%, respectively.