A victory for minorities! The saga of Richard Li’s attempts to shed PCCW, Hong Kong’s dominant telecoms operator and an asset acquired for $28bn in 2008 and now worth a 10th of that, has screeched to a halt. Mr Li’s latest scheme had been to buy out PCCW’s minorities and take the company private alongside his partner China Unicom, and eventually sell it on. But Mr Li pulled this plan on Thursday after the local regulator won court backing to block the deal.

It is rare for minorities to win in Asia, where family ownership often stands in their way. But Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission had the bit between its teeth, whipped on by a diligent activist investor and hordes of mom-and-pop investors. The case, too, made for high court room drama. Mr Li, son of the territory’s richest tycoon, had already thrice failed to find a buyer. Under his latest plan, Mr Li would have paid minorities HK$15.6bn to take PCCW private, and then awarded himself and China Unicom a HK$17.2bn special dividend out of its cash pile. Allegations that the shareholder vote that approved this plan had been rigged, rejected by an initial court hearing, added a layer of grubbiness.