Once upon a time, it took things like real estate and factories to quicken Hong Kong's pulse. But when a new Netco called "the Tom" floated its IPO in February, hundreds of thousands of would-be investors clamored for shares, and the police were brought in to control the chaos. Ever versatile, the black market sprang to life: Outside IPO-designated banks, elderly women hawked share applications alongside dried fish and joss sticks.
Currently little more than a domain name, tom.com promises to be "the leading multilingual China-related new media megaportal." But the startup's real asset is its pedigree: Tom is the debut Web venture of Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong tycoon who can send the Hang Seng Index plummeting with a sneeze, and father of Richard Li, Asia's new chief media visionary who founded Pacific Century CyberWorks. For a city that turns deals in its sleep, this mass hysteria is proof that the paradigm has not only shifted, it's doing a drunken belly dance.
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