markedly worse than what the market expected, with an estimated headline loss for the full year to september 2014 financial year of r 6. 4 billion. ellerine holdings ltd, like african bank, is a wholly owned subsidiary of abil. ellerine furnishers has been a significant drain on abil, requiring funding support of a minimum of r 70 million per month. the abil board announced its decision to sell ellerine and endeavoured to find a buyer. african bank is the only south african bank exposed in this way to a furniture chain. ellerine furnishers was placed into a business rescue process on 7th august 2014. one of the outcomes of this is that the significant monthly financial support required from abil and african bank has ended. bis central bankers ’ speeches the problems that have beset african bank are, in our view, largely specific to their current business model, which does not include a diversified set of products and income streams, nor does it offer transactional banking services. this has made african bank and the abil group uniquely vulnerable to a changing or challenging business environment, such as currently prevails. it is against this backdrop that the decision has been taken to introduce a range of support measures for african bank. the first important measure has been the conclusion reached by the registrar of banks and the decision by the minister of finance to place african bank under curatorship with effect from 16. 00 today, 10th august 2014. african bank limited ’ s board has, after due consideration, advised the registrar that it does not oppose curatorship and has taken the appropriate resolutions to facilitate the process. the curatorship provides the legal framework within which the necessary initiatives to enable resolution can take place. the minister has appointed mr tom winterboer as the curator. he will be responsible for african bank with immediate effect, with the full authority the law confers on the curator. tom winterboer is the financial services industry leader for africa and a member of the global financial services leadership team at pwc. you will be provided with his cv as part of the press pack and i would like to introduce him to you now. mr winterboer will be assisted in his task of securing a viable future for african bank by a team of experts, including mr peter spratt and mr david gard from pwc london. mr gard, who has been appointed as senior advisor, business restructuring, has been working with african bank for the past four weeks. he will take particular responsibility for

. following the normalization of sino - japanese relationships in 1972, business trips to the mainland became possible. in addition, the bank started to send its staff to hong kong university to let them study chinese language. since then, hong kong has played a role as a cradle to foster experts on china at the bank. in 1978, hong kong resumed granting licenses to eligible foreign banks, thereby strengthening its status as an international financial centre. along with these developments, the importance of the hong kong office to the bank was firmly established. hong kong over the last decade the history of hong kong has always been spectacular, but i am convinced the last decade has been the most challenging one. let me mention just a few particularly significant events. the first is the asian currency crisis. since asia had been praised at that time as a " growth centre, " the fact that the crisis occurred in asia surprised us. it also reminded us of the risk for central banks of drifting into complacency. as you know, this experience led to closer cooperation between the hong kong monetary authority, the bank of japan and other asian central banks. this co - operation bore fruit in the shape of the asian bond fund, which aims to create a more advanced bond market in asia, and the swap arrangements called the chiang mai initiative which act as a safeguard against any future crisis. when there was mounting selling pressure on the hong kong dollar, the hong kong monetary authority, under the leadership of chief executive yam, adopted various measures to further strengthen the currency board system. the decisive actions remain vivid in my mind. although japan's currency system differs from hong kong's, we would like to express our respect for the authority's strong belief in achieving the ultimate goal for a central bank, namely to safeguard the currency system. the second is the sars epidemic of 2003. it is understandable that some people lost confidence in hong kong, as the city faced this appalling epidemic just as the wounds of the asian currency crisis had begun to heal. however, hong kong coped successfully with this epidemic by implementing strict hygiene control measures. in addition, the increased number of visitors from the mainland to hong kong, supported by deregulation in the mainland, gave renewed vigor to the tourism industry, severely hit by sars, thereby strengthening ties between hong kong and the mainland. last but not least, let me highlight once again hong kong's current rapid growth, with closer economic ties with the mainland. hong kong