HSBC to Sponsor $5 Million Shanghai Golf Tournament, People Say

8 July 2005 - Bloomberg

HSBC Holdings Plc, founded in China in 1865, will sponsor a new $5 million golf tournament in Shanghai, creating the highest purse for an event on the Asian tour, people familiar with the plan said.

The HSBC Champions Tournament at Shanghai's Sheshan Golf Club will take place Nov. 10-13 and will be open to the world's top 50 players and to the past year's winners on the European, Asian, Australasian and southern African tours, the people said, who asked not to be named. Masters Tournament Champion Tiger Woods will play in the competition, the people said.

Sports in China are attracting sponsorships as financial institutions seek to boost business in the fastest-growing major economy. Investment banking and brokerage fees will triple to about $12 billion in China by 2010, according to an April 11 report by Merrill Lynch & Co. UBS AG, Europe's biggest bank by assets, yesterday said it will more than triple to $2.5 million the prize money for the Hong Kong Open by 2008.

"Golf attracts rich people in China, and HSBC and UBS want to sell to those people,'' Ben Wells, account director at London- based sponsorship consultant Redmandarin Ltd., said in a telephone interview. "Golf is growing in China along with the economy, which is an ideal pairing for these companies.''

The European Tour has already staged a record five tournaments in China this year with sponsors including carmakers Volvo, Volkswagen AG and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG.

World Match Play
"HSBC operates in three principal regions around the world,'' company spokesman Richard Lindsay said in a telephone interview. ``We sponsor major tournaments in two of those and it's no secret that we were looking for opportunities in Asia. We will be making a formal announcement in this regard shortly.'' Lindsay declined to comment further. Louis Martin, chief executive of the Asian Tour, declined to comment. London-based HSBC is in the third year of a 10-year accord to sponsor golf's World Match Play Championship. The tournament, played at Wentworth in the U.K., has a first prize of 1 million pounds ($1.84 million), the biggest in the sport. The total purse in 2005 will be 2.44 million pounds, $600,000 less than the China event.

The St. Andrews, Scotland-based Royal & Ancient Golf Club, which governs the game outside the U.S. and Mexico, is also seeking to promote golf in China by extending grants to build more courses, train greenskeepers and develop young players. There are more than 150 courses serving the 1.3 billion population, R&A Chief Executive Peter Dawson has said.

28 Events
Rising prize money has attracted more of the world's leading players to tournaments in China. This year, world No. 3 Ernie Els, sixth-ranked Sergio Garcia and U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen finished behind winner and world No. 8 Adam Scott at the Johnnie Walker Classic in Beijing, while Els clinched one of three wins so far this year at the BMW Asian Open in Shanghai. The Asian Tour on May 13 said the second half of this year's season will include 13 tournaments paying a record $20 million in prize money. The schedule will lift the 2005 Asian Tour to 28 events, up six from last year.

The Champions Tournament will mark the first appearance in a competition in China for nine-time major winner Woods, who won the Masters for a fourth time in April. He begins his quest next week for a third U.S. Open title at Pinehurst Resort's No. 2 course in North Carolina.