HK banks to repay Lehman minibond investors

HONG KONG (AFP) - Hong Kong banks that sold minibonds linked to now bankrupt Lehman Brothers have agreed to repay tens of thousands of investors up to 96.5 percent of their investment, regulators said Sunday. The sixteen banks will buy back a large chunk of the financial products at the centre of a major scandal in Hong Kong, after they were sold to more than 40,000 investors before their value tanked when the US bank went bankrupt in 2008. Investors ploughed a total of HK$15.7 billion ($2 billion) of their savings into minibonds and other complex products backed by Lehman Brothers. Welcoming the deal the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and Hong Kong Monetary Authority said the agreement will provide substantial recoveries for all customers holding the products. This outcome would have been seen as impossible in the months following the collapse of Lehman and demonstrates the value of good regulators responding efficiently and robustly when things go wrong, SFC chief executive Martin Wheatley said in a statement. The HKMA said investors would recover 85 to 96.5 percent of their initial investment, up from 60 to 70 percent in an earlier agreement.