China’s big telecom carriers asked the New York Stock Exchange to rethink their planned delisting, the latest twist in a to-and-fro about whether they should be allowed to trade in U.S. markets.
In separate filings Thursday morning in Hong Kong, China Mobile Ltd. , China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. and China Telecom Corp. said they had filed requests asking the NYSE to reverse its decision to delist their American depositary receipts. They said they had asked if a trading halt on their ADRs could be lifted in the meantime.
The requests came hours after Joe Biden was sworn in as the new U.S. president. Mr. Biden signed 15 executive orders and two executive actions on his first day in office, reversing some of former President Trump’s key policies.
In November, Mr. Trump signed an order barring Americans from investing in a list of Chinese companies that the U.S. said supplied and otherwise supported China’s military, intelligence and security services. The order bans U.S. investors from buying blacklisted securities from Jan. 11, and gives them until Nov. 11 to shed their holdings.
While these three telecoms’ parent companies, which aren’t publicly traded, are covered by the ban, it was initially unclear if the listed groups were also included. This month, the NYSE first said it would delist the trio, then changed its mind, then decided it would delist them after all.