It's not often investors buy stock for reasons of charity, but Jardine Fleming achieved this feat on June 16 when celebrating its inaugural day as a member of the Singapore stock exchange. It decided to give half of its commissions to charity.
"On these sorts of occasions," says country manager Philip Smiley "companies normally have dreadful cocktail parties and someone makes a boring speech. We wanted to spend the money in a more fruitful way."
The idea was hatched by head of broking Olivier Stocker, who also decided the money should be donated to charities seeking to fight the haze from Indonesia. In the event Jardine Fleming captured 5% of main board turnover, although as Smiley is quick to admit, "it wasn't an exciting day in any direction. The market fell on poor turnover".
It was an important day for Jardine Fleming, however. Not having a seat in Asia's burgeoning fund management centre was somewhat amazing for the region's biggest stockbroker with seats in 19 other Asian locations.
Did the charity help Jardine Fleming to get off to a flying start? "I would hope there were some orders put our way because of the charitable aspect," observes Smiley.