Frederick Ma Si-hang took much heat during Hong Kong’s so-called “penny stock incident”. But his faith in God was forged during that difficult period when he was blamed and flamed for the crash of penny stocks in the Asian financial hub.

Ma was baptised in International Christian Assembly (ICA) Church in Hong Kong in 2003.

“It took a baptism of fire for me to get baptised. My mother couldn’t do it. The fiasco in 2002 did it. It is traceable to my government career,” Ma told Salt&Light.

“Nobody can help you except God”

Ma’s late mother was a fervent Christian.

Ma joined the Hong Kong government as Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury on July 1, 2002. Three weeks after he assumed this post, the penny stock incident in Hong Kong erupted.

In late July 2002, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange released a consultation paper with proposals for continued listing eligibility for penny stocks. The Hong Kong financial regulator, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), asked the stock exchange to delist securities whose share price was below 50 Hong Kong cents.

On July 25, 2002, penny stock prices tumbled on fears that they risked being delisted. In one trading day during that period, roughly 10% of the market capitalisation of penny stocks in Hong Kong was wiped out. 

Hong Kong’s robust and freewheeling press took the Hong Kong government to task for the stock market crash.

“As Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, I had to explain,” Ma recalled. “I told Legco (Hong Kong’s Legislative Council) I did not read the paper. So the public was furious, asking me, ‘How come you did not read the paper?’ It was very tough. All fingers were pointed at me, accusing me of not doing my job. Many Legco members asked for my resignation.

“I was accused by the media, Legco and public of being a lazy official. I was stressed to the point I could not sleep well at night,” Ma related.

At that time, Ma’s wife Linda, who was a Christian, told him: “Nobody can help you except God.”

For several months, Linda got her husband to wake up at 6:30am every morning, when she told him stories from the Bible and prayed for him.

“In September, I decided on my own will to apologise to the public,” Ma said.

On September 11, 2002, Ma bowed in a public apology.

“Even after I apologised, I still felt terrible,” he said. “I really started to trust in God.

“Then God did a miracle.”

Divine revelation

Several months later, Ma discovered he had not received the Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s paper which sparked the penny stock crisis, even though his assistant had earlier told him that she had sent it to him.

The discovery occurred one day when he came across the paper enclosed in a red file indicating it was a confidential document. The fact that the confidential paper in the red file was not signed off by him meant he had not read it previously. It was then that Ma realised that his assistant had not told him the truth.

“This revelation by God helped me to sleep. I was not sleeping well previously. Since then, I slept well, because I knew it was not my fault,” Ma disclosed. This detail has not been publicly reported before.

Despite being a target of widespread criticism for the penny stock incident, Ma remained Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury till June 30, 2007. Following this, he was Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development from July 1, 2007, to July 11, 2008.

The penny stock crisis caused Ma’s approval rating to plunge to 39% in October 2002, according to a poll. However, when he left the cabinet of Hong Kong’s government in July 2008, he had a high approval rating of 63.4%.

Ma was formerly a high-flying executive in the private sector before taking a substantial pay cut to join the Hong Kong government.

“Joining government in those days, you get a pay cut and criticism. The greatest thing that ever happened to me in government was that I became a Christian. That has brought me peace and joy forever.

“As a Christian, you become humble because God has the power to reveal to us things and thus we feel small compared to His power,” Ma said.

Joy and peace

“I became a Christian only at 50,” Ma told Salt&Light. “I’m a latecomer, but I really believe in God and He has transformed me, so I want to honour him with my sharing.”

Since Ma was born in Hong Kong on February 22, 1952, he grew up in a Christian environment. Yet he did not believe in Christianity for many years.

He attended a Catholic primary school in Hong Kong, so church was not alien to him. During the early 1980s when Ma and his mother lived in Canada, she would regularly attend church and he always followed her.

“The sermons somehow went from the left ear to the right ear – they never registered and I did not have a desire to be a Christian,” Ma said.

After Ma and his mother returned from Canada to Hong Kong in 1985, he occasionally accompanied her to church. His mother passed away in 1987.

In 2013, Ma became an independent non-executive director of the MTR Corporation, which operates Hong Kong’s subway system. He was appointed chairman of the Hong Kong-listed company in 2016, and stepped down in 2019.

Despite being in his early 70s now, Ma believes God wants him to remain active.

He sits on the advisory council of the Hong Kong Chief Executive. He is Chairman of FWD Group, an Asian life and health insurance firm. He sits on the board of several companies including the Bank of China Hong Kong and Cosco Holdings, a large Chinese state-owned shipping firm. He is also a Director of New Frontier Health, a Hong Kong healthcare company co-founded by Antony Leung, another former Hong Kong minister who is also a Christian. Ma is involved with schools for students with special needs in Hong Kong.

“By God’s grace, I’m healthy. I won’t just sit back to eat and drink. Every year I would do sharing in church functions a few times,” Ma said.

“I feel so close to God. Every time He would guide me and give me the joy and peace I need.”

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