Thirty-nine Hong Kong-listed firms suspended trade before the stock market opened on Wednesday, having failed to release their financial results on time.

Several of them, including developers such as Modern Land, Mingfa Group and Hopson Development, said the delays came as their auditing work has not yet finished, while others noted they were changing auditors.

According to the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, 1,966 of the city's 2,005 listed firms had already disclosed their audited annual results for the fiscal year ending December.

The bourse said the number of firms that failed to do so was down from 67 a year earlier and at the lowest since 2023.

Under listing rules, companies have three months after the end of the financial year to publish their results.

Terence Chong, an economics professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said while the number of firms that failed to disclose their results in a timely manner was small, both regulators and investors should remain vigilant.

"When we buy shares of listed companies, we hope there's better supervision, and there's regularly published data, the transparent data," Chong said.

"We would not expect the company to frequently suspend trading."

Chong doesn't believe the delays had to do with manpower issues amid an increase in initial public offerings last year, saying the city has a wide pool of talent, with more than 40,000 accountants capable of handling auditing work.


Edited by Edmond Fong