It was a day to remember, although if many shareholders had the choice, we're sure they would probably wish it had never happened, as the market value of the combined company has fallen from HK$500 billion to HK$14.4 billion.

Everyone was hoping the fortunes of PCCW, the company with the luckiest stock code (8), would change last year, but it was not to be, as Mr Li and China Unicom made a privatisation offer.

Since then, we've had a raucous shareholders meeting and a dramatic appeal court ruling in April that overturned the privatisation attempt, following a vote-rigging investigation by the Securities and Futures Commission.

The case might yet go to the Court of Final Appeal, although such a move by PCCW is likely to incur more wrath from disgruntled shareholders.

As long as it remains listed, PCCW will be subject to media scrutiny, but according to a couple of inside sources, things have been less fraught for the past few months, or as one of them put it: 'No news is good news'.

By coincidence, the only news relating to PCCW yesterday came in a press release from the securities watchdog that highlighted a list of its enforcement actions this year, including the high-profile court case.

We hope it's not just the SFC and Lai See who will be lighting candles for PCCW's 10th anniversary next year.

Space men's car of choice

Several mainland carmakers are said to have expressed an interest in buying the Swedish brand Volvo, put on the block by Ford Motor.

That could explain an odd press release issued by the car company yesterday claiming that of the six Chinese men who have been in space, four of them 'have chosen to buy the Volvo S80L'.

Yes, Yang Liwei (above), the first Taikonaut, who orbited earth in Shenzhou-5 in October 2003, and Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng from the Shenzhou-7 spacewalk mission a year ago, made their down-to-earth decisions on the 'premiumness' of the 'not ostentatious' motor.

It does beg the question: What do Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng of Shenzhou-6 prefer to drive?

Yang makes Samsung's day

Samsung Securities, the brokerage arm of South Korean conglomerate Samsung Group, picked quite a day to announce the expansion of its Hong Kong business.

We're not talking about the Hang Seng Index falling 3.62 per cent but the fact that the press conference came just hours after Y.E. Yang made golfing history by becoming the first Asian to win a major tournament, beating Tiger Woods in the final round to clinch the United States PGA Championship.

Samsung Securities chief executive Park Chun-hyeon was certainly very excited about his fellow countryman's achievement, perhaps a bit more than about his plan to hire 50 more people in Hong Kong by the end of the year.

Zheng lobs chairman out

Flipping through Anta Sports' interim report, we couldn't help noticing the pictures of China's No1 women's tennis player, Zheng Jie.

In fact, the mainland sportswear firm ran nine pictures of her, including a front and back cover combination of her playing against former world No1 Jelena Jankovic.

In contrast, chairman Ding Shizhong merits only four photographs in the 62-page report. But then again, Zheng and Jankovic are sponsored by the company.

NWS chief dies at 69

NWS Holdings chief executive Chan Kam-ling (below), the man who led New World chairman Cheng Yu-tung's first forays into the mainland, died at the weekend after a long illness. He was 69.

Chan, who began his career with Hip Hing Construction, joined the New World group in 1965 and was one of the longest-serving employees of the Cheng family firm.

He was the brains behind Mr Cheng's entry into the mainland infrastructure sector, helping to buy up water and toll-road projects in the late 80s and early 90s, which eventually became New World Infrastructure (later privatised) and now NWS Holdings.