China’s various share types thrown into focus

A curious thing happened as China’s renminbi-denominated A-shares tumbled on Wednesday. While they dropped by 6.4 per cent, the alphabet soup of other classes of Chinese company shares fell by sharply differing amounts.

The so-called H-shares, mainland Chinese companies traded in Hong Kong, fell just 2 per cent while mainland-listed, foreign currency-denominated B-shares fell more than 9 per cent......

....A-shares listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen were trading at an average of more than 34 times estimated 2007 earnings, against 17.5 times for H-shares......B-shares are nearly 70 per cent cheaper than their A-share counterparts....

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/deb01324-0f01-11dc-b444-000b5df10621,_i_nbePage=...