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HK Listco Onshore Map: methodology

What problem it solves

Many HK-listed companies are holding companies registered in Cayman, BVI or Hong Kong; the business runs through mainland companies with different names. Chinese news, tender awards and supply-chain records name those mainland companies, not the HK company, so anyone following the HK ticker misses them. The map links each HK listing to the mainland companies in its group, with dates and a stated reason for every link.

Inputs (all listed on Numinor)

  • HK Listco Group Structure (ChinaScope, 香港上市公司谱系企业架构): public_domestic_entity (the HK company's named onshore operating company) and hk_related_company_base (the group tree from each report: subsidiaries, grandchildren, associates, joint ventures, with registration and ownership).
  • ChinaScope Reference stock master (base_stock): listings, listing status, listing dates, company ids.
  • SmarTag company tags: only to learn which company ids SmarTag files under each HK ticker.

Rules

  1. One HK company, one main code. ChinaScope repeats whole group trees under RMB counters (8xxxx), temporary parallel-trading codes and pre-listing codes. Members are kept once, under the main HKD code; other codes point to it in listings. Stray spaces in codes are removed. Share classes of one company (e.g. A and B shares) stay separate main codes.
  2. Members = mainland companies only. Registered in mainland China (ChinaScope's standardised registration, or the disclosed registration 中国 when the standardised value is missing). Offshore members and members that are themselves listed are left out; they remain in the source product.
  3. Roles. Controlled (wholly / majority owned, grandchild, VIE, consolidated structured entity) = subsidiary; associates, joint ventures and minority stakes = joint_venture_or_minority. The company ChinaScope names as the onshore operating company is main_operating_company only when the group tree confirms it as controlled.
  4. Dates. known_from = report period end + 4 months (the HK deadline for annual reports; usually a little late, never early), and never before the HK listing date: reports covering periods before the IPO become public through the prospectus, at listing. The confirmed main operating company counts from the HK listing date (the prospectus names it). Links that ended on or before the listing date never applied to the listed company and are out of scope. A member missing from a later FULL report leaves the group from that report's period end + 4 months; a report that lists fewer than half of the company's usual number of members is treated as partial and cannot mark a departure.
  5. Held back. A link the source data cannot support is not put in the map: the named operating company is not a controlled subsidiary in the tree, there is no tree yet, the relationship label is blank or not a subsidiary / joint venture, the company id is wrong, or a tree row filed under one HK code carries another listed company's id (a row counts for an HK code only if it carries the stock master's id for the ticker's current holder, or the operating-company table's id; this also keeps a reused ticker's previous holder out). These rows are listed in held_back with the reason and enter the map automatically once the source is corrected.
  6. The HK company's own ids. listco_ids combines the stock-master id, the group-table id, hand-checked ids of the same company's US or A-share listing, and the ids SmarTag files under the HK ticker from the listing year on (earlier years belong to a previous holder of a reused ticker). An id that SmarTag files under one ticker but that is another listed company's own id is never counted for that ticker; if SmarTag files it there more often than under its owner, it is also listed in held_back for review. A hand-checked list records resolved cases.
  7. Reasons. Every map row carries use_for_group_news and a group_news_basis code. Controlled subsidiaries and the confirmed main operating company are recommended; joint ventures / minority stakes are not, and neither are companies SmarTag already files under the HK ticker (their news already counts as the company's own).

Using it with SmarTag

Group news for an HK stock = SmarTag company tags whose companyid is in listco_ids for that code (own news), plus tags whose companyid is a member_company_id in onshore_map with use_for_group_news = true, dated on or after known_from and before dropped_from. Count each article once per HK code.

Limits

  • No disclosure date in the source: known_from is a rule. For 84% of the map's rows the link is already in the earliest report available (FY2022 at the earliest), so known_from is a floor: the link may be older.
  • The group tree lists every member against the HK company directly; intermediate holding chains are not given.
  • Coverage follows ChinaScope's group tables: mostly companies listed today; FY2025 trees were still largely missing at first delivery (October 2026).