David Michael Webb
| David Webb | |
|---|---|
Webb in May 2013
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
David Michael Webb 29 August 1965 London, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Residence | Hong Kong |
| Alma mater | Exeter College, Oxford |
| Occupation | Activist |
| Profession | Investment banker |
David Michael Webb (born 29 August 1965 in London, England) is an activist and analyst in Hong Kong. He is a retired investment banker, and now devotes much of his time to advocating solutions for better corporate and economic governance in Hong Kong. He is also a significant investor in smaller companies listed on the , and is frequently called upon by the media to comment on all matters relating to corporate and economic governance.
Webb graduated in Mathematics from Exeter College, Oxford in 1986. From 1981 to 1986 he was also an author of books and games for early home computers, particularly the Sinclair Spectrum 8-bit Zilog Z80A based device. He authored the Pac Man type game Spookyman and went on to create the acclaimed 3D Vector graphics game Starion on the ZX Spectrum. After graduation he became an investment banker in London. He moved to Hong Kong in 1991. He retired from Investment Banking in 1998, and now lobbies extensively for increased transparency and public accountability of directors of public companies as well as for the Government of Hong Kong.
Webb was appointed as a Deputy Chairman of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission's Takeover and Mergers Panel on 1 April 2013, having commenced serving as member on 1 April 2001.
Webb has been referred to as the "'Long Hair' of the financial markets" (in an allusion to Leung Kwok-hung), but his activism is not purely restricted to the finance sector. He uses his eponymous webb-site.com as his official mouthpiece on all matters commercial and political.
He has purchased shares in all the companies which form the Hang Seng Index, and demands formal votes to resolutions which he judges detrimental to the interests of minority shareholders during the annual general meeting of public listed companies. To force real votes, Webb launched "Project Poll" to push for formal votes on all proposals at annual meetings of Hang Seng Index constituent companies; he initiated Project Vampire, to block resolutions that allow for massive and negate pre-emption of rights issues.
In December 2005, he advocated widening the electorate of the functional constituencies, arguing that professionals in fields such as bankers and stockbrokers should get to elect their own representatives. He observed then that only accountants, lawyers, doctors and teachers are able to exercise that right; stockbrokers are represented by convicted fraudster Chim Pui-chung, whilst the banking seat has only been contested once in 20 years. During the 2014 Hong Kong protests, he said that the economic impact of the protests was minor compared to the large economic benefits of a more dynamic economy that would come from democracy, ending collusion between the Government and the tycoons who currently elect the Chief Executive.
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