CK Hutchison shares slide amid pressure to delay Panama ports deal

STORY: CK Hutchison is under mounting pressure to drop its planned sale of ports on the Panama Canal. Shares in the Hong Kong conglomerate were down around 3% by early afternoon Monday. That’s amid signs of official opposition to the Panama deal. A pro-Beijing paper in Hong Kong on Monday published a full page of articles urging Hutchison to drop the planned sale. The same paper has published a series of commentaries depicting the agreement as a betrayal of China. But any move to drop the sale could just land the firm in hot water with Washington instead. Hutchison agreed the sale to a U.S.-led consortium amid pressure from Donald Trump.The U.S. president had cited its ownership of the ports as evidence of Chinese sway over the waterway. He had welcomed the $19 billion sale of the ports to a group including investment giant BlackRock. Now there’s growing doubt that the deal will be finalized by an April 2 deadline. Analysts at JPMorgan say they don’t expect a resolution until the end of July, or even later. However, they said they expected Hutchison to find a way to resolve tensions between the various interested parties. Last Friday, Reuters reported that the deal would go ahead, but parts of it could be delayed. The same day saw Chinese regulators say they would probe the plan to make sure it didn't breach competition laws.

STORY: CK Hutchison is under mounting pressure to drop its planned sale of ports on the Panama Canal. Shares in the Hong Kong conglomerate were down around 3% by early afternoon Monday. That’s amid signs of official opposition to the Panama deal.

A pro-Beijing paper in Hong Kong on Monday published a full page of articles urging Hutchison to drop the planned sale. The same paper has published a series of commentaries depicting the agreement as a betrayal of China. But any move to drop the sale could just land the firm in hot water with Washington instead.

Hutchison agreed the sale to a U.S.-led consortium amid pressure from Donald Trump.

The U.S. president had cited its ownership of the ports as evidence of Chinese sway over the waterway.

He had welcomed the $19 billion sale of the ports to a group including investment giant BlackRock. Now there’s growing doubt that the deal will be finalized by an April 2 deadline. Analysts at JPMorgan say they don’t expect a resolution until the end of July, or even later.

However, they said they expected Hutchison to find a way to resolve tensions between the various interested parties. Last Friday, Reuters reported that the deal would go ahead, but parts of it could be delayed. The same day saw Chinese regulators say they would probe the plan to make sure it didn't breach competition laws.

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