Many startups in Britain either do not intend to or cannot access the government's Coronavirus Business Interruption and Loan Scheme, and may be forced to respond with furloughs or layoffs, warns a report

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To counter our adverse economic conditions, I have unveiled four sets of relief measures since last August. Totalling some $25 billion, the funds are focused on supporting businesses and lightening the burden weighing on the people of Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, we will continue to reach out to the community. Through wide-ranging dialogue communication and the pursuit of policies that address the deep-seated issues at the heart of our divide, I am hopeful that together we will find a path to peace and prosperity.

From an economic perspective, there is reason for optimism. I am heartened by the confidence private equity investors have shown in us. In the third quarter of 2019, some 560 private equity companies here managed US$153 billion.

We have nearly 50 more private equity (PE) firms based here when compared with the previous quarter. Among the world's top 10 PE fund managers, nine have a presence here in Hong Kong. That, ladies and gentlemen, underlines Hong Kong's formidable strengths in the Asian PE market. In that we trail only Mainland.

By channelling capital into corporations and startups in the innovation and technology field, PE and VC (venture capital) funds may well become as important as banks and IPO markets one day.

This Government is determined to help unlock the vast potential of the asset and wealth management business, because we believe you are critical to ensuring Hong Kong's status as one of the world's leading financial centres.

Fund-service centre 

That is why we have been stepping up efforts to sharpen Hong Kong's competitive edge on asset and wealth management through a multi-pronged approach including: (a) diversifying our fund structures and streamlining the licensing process to encourage fund formation; (b) adopting a more user-friendly approach to attract family offices; (c) providing a more facilitative tax environment for funds; and (d) expanding our fund distribution network through deepening our mutual access arrangements with other major financial markets.

On fund structure, the long-awaited, limited-partnership fund regime is close to reality, thanks in part to your favourable feedback. Indeed, we are now developing the necessary legislation. Because of the current filibustering at the Legislative Council, the tabling of the legislation got a little delayed, but it remains our top policy priority for the rest of this year to put this forward.

We are confident that the new regime will attract PE and VC funds, and we count on your support for that. With the new regime in place, we aim to bring in as many offshore funds as possible onshore to Hong Kong. We are well positioned to capture the opportunity arising from what happened on the international front over tax base erosion. This is mutually beneficial to Hong Kong as a fund hub and also the PE industry at large as you search for a new home for the funds you manage.

PE and VC funds, whether onshore or offshore, have enjoyed a profits tax exemption since last April. A tax-exempt fund can invest in local and overseas private companies. Hong Kong, by now, has a tax regime at fund level that is competitive and caters to the needs of the PE industry. I fully understand that resolving the tax issues at fund level is not enough in itself. It is of even greater importance to tackle head-on the tax arrangement for investment managers. This is a hard nut to crack, but one that I am determined to look into and come up with solutions that will strengthen Hong Kong's position as a leading fund hub with one of the most competitive tax arrangements for investment managers in the PE industry.

The significance of the limited partnership fund regime in completing Hong Kong's fund manufacturing infrastructure is underpinned by its precursor - the open-ended fund company regime. Since its operation in July 2018, a number of open-ended fund companies have sprouted. The SFC (Securities & Futures Commission) is also looking into how to make the regime more business-friendly to facilitate the take-up.

In short, the Government and our regulators are committed to developing Hong Kong into a full-fledged fund-service centre.

We are equally intent on expanding our fund-distribution network. We continue to expand our Mutual Recognition of Funds arrangements. Last year, Luxembourg and the Netherlands joined existing partners, the Mainland, Switzerland, France and the United Kingdom. More international partnerships will follow.

Family offices
Hong Kong is also an ideal location for the establishment of family offices, and we are boosting our promotional efforts in this regard.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority and InvestHK will provide comprehensive services to attract family offices to Hong Kong. The SFC has also recently issued licensing guidance for PE firms and family offices. This will enhance clarity and would help address the industry's concerns.

Without a steady flow of talented professionals, of course, we will not be able to cash in on all the opportunities there for us. That is why the Government's Pilot Programme to Enhance Talent Training for the Asset & Wealth Management Sector has been supporting the industry since 2016.

I encourage you to offer exposure, opportunity and jobs for our youth. To give them a stake in the society through the programme.

Business bridge 

Zooming out a bit, the Government will continue to boost Hong Kong's singular advantage as the business and financial bridge between international markets and investors and their counterparts on the Mainland.

To that end, we continue to emphasise the established channels - our Stock Connects, Bond Connect and the Mutual Recognition of Funds arrangements. We will also strengthen our position as the global offshore Renminbi business hub.

Then there is the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Development, and the extraordinary opportunity that it presents to Hong Kong.

With a GDP in excess of US$1.6 trillion and more than 70 million prosperous consumers, the Greater Bay Area presents vast potential for the asset and wealth management sector. For each and every one of you. The establishment of a Greater Bay Area wealth-management connect scheme, which was, as you know, recently announced, will go a long way towards realising that promise.

Our regulators are working out the details with their counterparts on the Mainland, and we will keep you posted and we are determined to push that forward as soon as possible. 

Financial Secretary Paul Chan gave these remarks at the Asia Private Equity Forum 2020 on January 15.

Applications for the $1.3 billion in subsidies earmarked for registered owners of goods vehicles and green minibus operators under the Anti-epidemic Fund opened today, the Transport Department announced.

A one-off non-accountable subsidy of $10,000 will be provided to each registered goods vehicle owner for each goods vehicle.

From today until September 30, registered owners of goods vehicles who have received the department's letters must use the registration PIN provided in the letters for submission of registrations through GovHK.

After successful completion of registration, the subsidy will be disbursed to the designated local bank account provided in the registration through autopay in about two to three weeks.

Cross-boundary goods vehicle drivers who conduct nucleic acid tests in Hong Kong can apply for the subsidy on an accountable basis, with the maximum amount being $350 per test.

A one-off non-accountable subsidy of $30,000 per green minibus will be provided to each holder of a Passenger Service Licence-Public Light Bus (Scheduled) Service who has been approved to operate a relevant green minibus route package.

The department briefed the green minibus trade today on the subsidy arrangement and application details with the distribution of the application forms.

Green minibus operators are required to send the completed application forms to the department by post on or before September 30.

After the department has verified their submissions, the subsidy will be disbursed through autopay in about one month.

To assist the transport trades to cope with operational demands in the prevailing economic environment, the Government has rolled out the fuel subsidy and one-off subsidy measures under the first round of the Anti-epidemic Fund progressively.

As of mid-April, the department has received applications for subsidies from three franchised bus companies, 10 franchised and licensed ferry operators, Hong Kong Tramways Limited, registrations from 1,700 registered owners of non-franchised public buses, school private light buses and hire cars. Over $100 million of the subsidies have been disbursed.

Click here for details.

The Food & Environmental Hygiene Department announced that applications for the Catering Business (Social Distancing) Subsidy Scheme, under the second round of the Anti-epidemic Fund, will start from May 5.

The department said the scheme, which is estimated to benefit 16,000 catering outlets and their employees, will provide financial relief measures to the catering businesses which have been hard hit by the COVID-19 epidemic and social distancing measures.

It will provide subsidies ranging from $250,000 to $2,200,000 to eligible licence holders of general restaurants, light refreshment restaurants, marine restaurants and factory canteens in operation according to the floor area of the premises as specified on the licence.

The primary goal of the scheme is to support the payment of employees' salaries during a six-month period following application approval.

To provide immediate relief to the catering sector, the subsidy will be dished out upfront, in two tranches.

To avoid abuse, applicants should undertake that there will be no redundancy of staff for three months on receipt of the first tranche of subsidy and another three months on receipt of the second tranche.

They should also undertake that not less than 80% of the subsidies for respective months would be used to pay salaries of staff working at the premises.

Applicants should submit within a specified period a certificate issued by a Certified Public Accountant (practising) on its total staff salaries and total number of salaried staff for each of the months covered by the subsidy.

They should also submit a certificate issued by a CPA on its total staff salaries and total number of staff working at the premises for the month of March this year.

To avoid double benefits, applicants should declare that they have not and will not submit any application under the Employment Support Scheme.

Each catering outlet directed to close its licensed premises under the Prevention & Control of Disease (Requirements & Directions) (Business & Premises) Regulation, including karaoke establishments, nightclubs and bars or pubs, is eligible for a further one-off subsidy of $50,000.

Applications should be submitted to the department's District Environmental Hygiene Offices in person or by mail. Food licence holders can also submit their applications through the website.

The deadline for application is June 5.

Upon receipt of the completed application form and supporting documents and after verification, the disbursement of the first tranche of subsidies can generally be made in two to three weeks by crossed cheques to the corresponding licensed food premises.

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Conference

Priorities, practices and principles in a digital age

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Adriaan Sticker
Apr 22, 2020; 0:RA119.001624v1-mcp.RA119.001624
Research

6 May 2020

Research Event

Event participants

Hon. Manuel José Nunes Júnior, Minister of State for Economic Coordination, Republic of Angola
Chair: Dr Alex Vines OBE, Managing Director, Ethics, Risk & Resilience; Director, Africa Programme, Chatham House

The presentation of peptides on class I human leukocyte antigen (HLA-I) molecules plays a central role in immune recognition of infected or malignant cells. In cancer, non-self HLA-I ligands can arise from many different alterations, including non-synonymous mutations, gene fusion, cancer-specific alternative mRNA splicing or aberrant post-translational modifications. Identifying HLA-I ligands remains a challenging task that requires either heavy experimental work for in vivo identification or optimized bioinformatics tools for accurate predictions. To date, no HLA-I ligand predictor includes post-translational modifications. To fill this gap, we curated phosphorylated HLA-I ligands from several immunopeptidomics studies (including six newly measured samples) covering 72 HLA-I alleles and retrieved a total of 2,066 unique phosphorylated peptides. We then expanded our motif deconvolution tool to identify precise binding motifs of phosphorylated HLA-I ligands. Our results reveal a clear enrichment of phosphorylated peptides among HLA-C ligands and demonstrate a prevalent role of both HLA-I motifs and kinase motifs on the presentation of phosphorylated peptides. These data further enabled us to develop and validate the first predictor of interactions between HLA-I molecules and phosphorylated peptides.

Two new regions of Microsoft's Azure cloud will open in Canberra on Tuesday.

Gemma Cadby
Apr 1, 2020; 61:537-545
Patient-Oriented and Epidemiological Research

6 May 2020

Label-Free Quantitative mass spectrometry based workflows for differential expression (DE) analysis of proteins impose important challenges on the data analysis due to peptide-specific effects and context dependent missingness of peptide intensities. Peptide-based workflows, like MSqRob, test for DE directly from peptide intensities and outperform summarization methods which first aggregate MS1 peptide intensities to protein intensities before DE analysis. However, these methods are computationally expensive, often hard to understand for the non-specialised end-user, and do not provide protein summaries, which are important for visualisation or downstream processing. In this work, we therefore evaluate state-of-the-art summarization strategies using a benchmark spike-in dataset and discuss why and when these fail compared to the state-of-the-art peptide based model, MSqRob. Based on this evaluation, we propose a novel summarization strategy, MSqRobSum, which estimates MSqRob’s model parameters in a two-stage procedure circumventing the drawbacks of peptide-based workflows. MSqRobSum maintains MSqRob’s superior performance, while providing useful protein expression summaries for plotting and downstream analysis. Summarising peptide to protein intensities considerably reduces the computational complexity, the memory footprint and the model complexity, and makes it easier to disseminate DE inferred on protein summaries. Moreover, MSqRobSum provides a highly modular analysis framework, which provides researchers with full flexibility to develop data analysis workflows tailored towards their specific applications.

CVD is the leading cause of death worldwide, and genetic investigations into the human lipidome may provide insight into CVD risk. The aim of this study was to estimate the heritability of circulating lipid species and their genetic correlation with CVD traits. Targeted lipidomic profiling was performed on 4,492 participants from the Busselton Family Heart Study to quantify the major fatty acids of 596 lipid species from 33 classes. We estimated narrow-sense heritabilities of lipid species/classes and their genetic correlations with eight CVD traits: BMI, HDL-C, LDL-C, triglycerides, total cholesterol, waist-hip ratio, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure. We report heritabilities and genetic correlations of new lipid species/subclasses, including acylcarnitine (AC), ubiquinone, sulfatide, and oxidized cholesteryl esters. Over 99% of lipid species were significantly heritable (h²: 0.06–0.50) and all lipid classes were significantly heritable (h²: 0.14–0.50). The monohexosylceramide and AC classes had the highest median heritabilities (h² = 0.43). The largest genetic correlation was between clinical triglycerides and total diacylglycerol (r_g = 0.88). We observed novel positive genetic correlations between clinical triglycerides and phosphatidylglycerol species (r_g: 0.64–0.82), and HDL-C and alkenylphosphatidylcholine species (r_g: 0.45–0.74). Overall, 51% of the 4,768 lipid species-CVD trait genetic correlations were statistically significant after correction for multiple comparisons. This is the largest lipidomic study to address the heritability of lipids and their genetic correlation with CVD traits. Future work includes identifying putative causal genetic variants for lipid species and CVD using genome-wide SNP and whole-genome sequencing data.

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Elder abuse is often the result of the organisation of health systems rather than the fault of individuals, argue Jolanda Lindenberg and Rudi Westendorp, two authors of a recent analysis paper. They call for system abuse to be acknowledged and addressed by incorporating older people’s views when designing health services. Read the full...

HE Hohmeier
Mar 1, 2000; 49:424-430
Articles

No sooner than the Government’s announced its intention to restart the economy, private sector groups are advocating for longer working hours to fast-track recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a collaborative move, the Jamaica Manufacturers...

Plenty of teams say they will make roster moves in the offseason to improve and then often underwhelm. No one could say that this winter about the Reds, who were arguably the busiest team during the Hot Stove season.