JARDINE DECLINES COMMENT ON HONGKONG LAND REPORT
A spokesman for Jardine Matheson Holdings
Ltd <JARD.HK> said he could neither confirm nor deny a
newspaper report which said Jardine was thinking of moving its
listed property subsidiary <Hongkong Land Ltd> to Bermuda.
    "I don't know how the report was originated ... I cannot
comment," the spokesman at Jardine's London office said when
asked to react to a report in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
    The report said Jardine, which moved its place of domicile
from Hong Kong to Bermuda in the wake of the agreement to
transfer the British colony back to China in 1997, was
contemplating a similar move for Hongkong Land.
    The Daily Telegraph quoted Jardine chairman Simon Keswick
as saying Hongkong Land was at a crossroads now that all its
non-property assets as well as its major residential properties
in Hong Kong are being sold off.
    This left the company to focus its attention on prime site
commercial property in Hong Kong's city centre only, it said.
    "If we can't find any opportunities here we may have to look
abroad ... If we look abroad the structure of the company
becomes very important," Keswick was quoted as saying.
 REUTER
