Hong Kong, January 13, 2026, 22:15 (HKT)
Hong Kong activist investor David Webb, best known for running the Webb-site.com database and for his “Enigma Network” stock report, has died aged 60, according to a notice posted on one of his social media accounts. The post said he “passed away peacefully in Hong Kong” from metastatic prostate cancer. (South China Morning Post)
Webb built a following among investors and market professionals by publishing blunt critiques of companies and regulators, and by compiling corporate and market data that was free to the public. In 2020, he said he would step back after a prostate cancer diagnosis but added: “don’t count me out yet,” while estimating he had sent more than 1,000 letters to Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (0388.HK) and the Securities and Futures Commission. (Reuters)
His market impact was sometimes direct. In 2017, Webb published “The Enigma Network: 50 stocks not to own”, mapping cross-shareholdings — companies owning stakes in each other — across Hong Kong’s main board and the Growth Enterprise Market, and many of the named shares later plunged. The SFC said the sharp falls hit a segment marked by thin trading, small public floats (the shares actually available to trade) and high ownership concentration, conditions that can magnify volatility and misconduct. (Reuters)
Webb was also known in Hong Kong for pressing for market transparency and investor rights, and for advocacy that went beyond boardrooms into public accountability debates. (France 24)
In 2018, his research into Hong Kong-listed firms linked to China Huarong Asset Management helped trigger a sell-off across more than 15 stocks, while Webb said the connections he could chart were “just the tip of the iceberg.” Tom Atkinson, then the SFC’s director of enforcement, said the regulator was focusing on “nefarious networks.”
Webb’s fight with the bourse operator went back years. In 2008, he resigned from the HKEX board accusing the exchange of poor management and bowing to political concerns; then-chairman Ronald Arculli rejected the charges, saying: “I don’t think that the independence of the board is an issue.” (Reuters)
In 2025, Webb was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the King’s Birthday Honours for services to raising standards of corporate and economic governance, particularly in Hong Kong, Exeter College, Oxford said. (Exeter College)
As his health worsened, Webb began planning an exit from the platform that made his name. In February 2025, he said he would shut down Webb-site.com in stages, and that “outcomes are measured in months rather than years,” adding that when the site’s New York server shut down the platform’s editorial content would disappear. (South China Morning Post)
But the future of his work was never simple. Webb said in March 2025 he would leave the database — and the software used to collect it — in a public GitHub repository, and planned to release it under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence, which allows reuse so long as the source is credited. He also said he would not let anyone keep running Webb-site itself, adding: “The editorial side of it has to die with me.” (South China Morning Post)
A statement posted to his official X account said Webb died in Hong Kong on January 13 and that the family was requesting privacy, Dimsum Daily reported. It said he was survived by his wife and two children. (Dimsum Daily)
At a farewell event at Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club in May 2025, Webb cast his activism as more than investor protection. “Speaking truth to power and promoting democracy and transparency is all good for the economy and the people,” he said, calling Hong Kong his home. (FCC Hong Kong)
