
Some Hong Kong companies change their name every couple of months - slygent
https://blog.dataguru.hk/2018/12/24/some-hong-kong-companies-change-their-name-every-couple-of-months-why/
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rbanffy
It's a trick beginning musicians use. It allows them to be hired after they
did a awful live performance that got them blacklisted. IIRC, Ian Anderson,
from Jethro Tull, half-jokingly said on an interview this is how the band got
its name - this was the name they had when they were stopped being
blacklisted.

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fujimotos
While skimming the record of the questioned company, I noticed that several
names listed there are actually the ones of other (existing) companies. For
example, "中電光谷聯合控股有限公司" ("China Electronics Optics Valley Union Holding
Company Limited") is a public company listed on HKEx.

So, my guess is that something is wrong with the data scraping?

\----

Note: Some googling reveals that the company ("PREMIER DRAGON DEVELOPMENT
LIMITED") is a manufacturer / exporter of women's underwear, with 1-5
employees.

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wodenokoto
As for the premier dragon company, isn't it typical for Chinese companies to
have names unrelated to their business, but which sounds good to stick
investees who wants to invest in IT?

~~~
gumby
Sounds like I should rename my current startup, frobx.ai to “Enormously
Profitable in Multiple Lines of Business”

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plorkyeran
Well there was the famous example of Long Island Ice Tea's stock soaring when
they renamed to Long Blockchain.

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gumby
Ha, I was making a joke but that is an excellent real world example!

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emmanuel_1234
Curious as to how OP managed to get the registry data. HK government is
infamous for sucking at opening their data. This guy: [https://webb-
site.com/](https://webb-site.com/) is famous for spitting in their eyes
regularly to remind them.

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TomMarius
There is online registry where you can look these things up. The site sucks
but works.

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baybal2
HK is an offshore banking heaven. Running from taxmen is easier if they can't
bust your scheme by pressing CTRL+F.

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gojomo
While something shady is possible, it also may be the case that these are
"shelf companies", and rotating through names helps advertise/test names that
could be attractive to shelf-company buyers.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelf_corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelf_corporation)

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IkmoIkmo
No that's not what shelf companies are attractive for. It's all about age and
quick access to an incorporated entity, the name barely matters and can easily
be changed on request. Advertising or testing names by using a public company
register makes no sense, it's like apple testing the name of their new phone
through some public register of a telecom license filing.

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gojomo
I can believe you, but every online offer of shelf companies I've seen has
prominently listed an inventory of actual, available-today companies by name,
making me think some buyers don't want to go through the name change. And, one
site I just browsed lists as one of the "main reasons" for using a shelf
company is "to assist with the sometimes onerous task of designing a new
company name".

Which actually suggests another theory for the HK name changes: maybe they're
a fast/cheap way to instantly reserve a corporate name of interest, which is
then later released to whoever really wants it.

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kijin
This sounds like the common practice of squatting on a domain name. People who
are good at it don't squat on the same set of names forever; they adjust their
portfolios based on what's trendy at the time and let unprofitable names
expire. People who peddle shelf corporations might do the same, except they
can easily rename their wares.

And of course, just like domain names, you can't register more than one
corporation with the same name in the same jurisdiction.

Whoever owns this company has probably gone through several phases during
which they thought there might be heavy demand for names related to Chinese
resources, e-healthcare, education, land, and capital management. They also
seem to have a procedure in place that reverts an unsold shelf corporation to
a placeholder name or internal identifier (Premier Dragon) after a while.

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Jaruzel
my first UK company was a 'shelf' company. It was already pre-registered with
a name ( which I never changed ) and all I had to was sign a document and pay
a small fee to take it over. At the time it was WAY faster than starting one
from scratch.

These days it's just as fast to create a company from scratch as it's all
online. My second and third companies were 'from scratch'.

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guan
The situation in Denmark is the same. Back when pre-registered companies were
more common, the Stakemann law firm in Copenhagen had a big share of this
market, and Peter Andreas Stakemann is the founder of a large number of Danish
companies. This company registry page lists him as connected to 2,000
companies, mostly as founder or initial director. I suspect the system is
limiting the displayed list to 2,000 and he is actually connected to tens of
thousands of companies.

[https://datacvr.virk.dk/data/visenhed?enhedstype=person&id=4...](https://datacvr.virk.dk/data/visenhed?enhedstype=person&id=4000448343&soeg=peter%20andreas%20stakemann&type=Alle&language=da)

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thisisit
Simplest explanation is that they are involved in some kind of fraud.

Given that Chinese companies and their financial data are notoriously
difficult to obtain, it is no surprise either.

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jpollock
A simpler reason would be that it is cheaper to change control and name of a
company than it is to set one up.

Then you have a market to rent the business.

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pixl97
Which sounds like a great avenue for fraud.

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gammateam
Or a great avenue for just skipping the bullshit when a supplier requires 5
years of some administrative nuance that a new company would never have

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jjeaff
So... fraud?

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gammateam
skipping a supplier's arbitrary private company policy has nothing to do with
intent to commit fraud.

your work ethic is at your discretion and try to optimize your time.

~~~
jjeaff
I don't know where you are learning your ethics, but misrepresenting yourself
to a potential client is pretty standard, boilerplate fraud. Not criminal
(usually), but it is a civil breach of contract.

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lordnacho
Do the names have to mean approximately the same thing or sounds the same in
English and Chinese? You can imagine someone sneakily using one or the other
language to obfuscate.

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TazeTSchnitzel
The company names rules don't say anything about the names having to match up
in any way:
[https://www.cr.gov.hk/en/companies_ordinance/docs/Guide_RegC...](https://www.cr.gov.hk/en/companies_ordinance/docs/Guide_RegCompName-e.pdf)

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MrMorden
Street names in Hong Kong don't have to match up either, e.g. 青山道 vs Castle
Peak Road. (Maybe there's an obscure or obscure-to-me source that makes this
one make sense, though.)

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TazeTSchnitzel
I suspect it's something to do with Hong Kong's colonial history… Chinese
names chosen by Chinese-speaking locals and English names chosen by English-
speaking colonial administrators…?

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torgian
I recently opened a Hong Kong company. During the process I’ve seen how easy
it can be to change your company name, but there is a company registry number
tied to it.

I don’t know if that changes too though.

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TeMPOraL
Probably tax trickery.

I've been told that some franchises of grocery and alcohol stores in Poland
rotate through names every couple years, in order to avoid paying some taxes
that kick in after a number of years of operation. I didn't verify that info,
though.

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krzrak
The name has nothing to do here, because companies are identified by NIP (tax
id), so the name doesn't matter.

Probably what you meant is that new company is created and it takes over
business from the previous.

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GreaterFool
It could be one of those "off the shelf" companies. Rather than incorporating
one's own company one can buy an already existing company and change the name.
Given how easy it is to incorporate in Hong Kong I wouldn't recommend that.

Also, those name changes are done through Companies Registry and part of
public record. I wouldn't necessarily brush it up as shady.

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miguelmota
It’s just like ad networks and ad agencies that rename after being blacklisted
or caught of malpractice

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njarboe
Echos of Vernor Vinge's 2007 novel "Rainbows End" where one character has a
system where his companies spawn other companies every few seconds.

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T-A
Are you sure you're not thinking of Charles Stross' "Accelerando" (where this
is done in Ch. 2. "Troubadour" [1])? It's been a while since I read "Rainbows
End" [2], but I don't recall autonomous companies in it, and I don't see an
obvious way that they would fit in the plot.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End)

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njarboe
I think you are right. I'll have to give "Accelerando" another read.

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unmole
The original title _Some Hong Kong companies change their name every couple of
months_ is more appropriate as the artice does not go into _why_.

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dang
Ok we've taken out the why bit.

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ClassyJacket
I still don't know as the article doesn't address why...

