【英语中国】中信证券拓展遇阻 彰显中国金融体系缺陷

Citic Securities has ambitions to be the Goldman Sachs of China. But its latest effort to win new business has hit a hitch, underscoring the pitfalls of China's young financial system as it matures.

Citic Securities, an arm of the sprawling state-controlled Citic Group conglomerate, is China's largest brokerage house by assets and the most ambitious of China's homegrown brokerages. It has spent years looking for a tie-in with overseas investment banks that would help spread its international profile beyond Hong Kong. In recent months, Citic has come to an agreement with Credit Agricole's Corporate & Investment Bank to explore the two houses combining their equity businesses around the world.

Data from Dealogic shows Citic Securities generated more fees from underwriting equity issuance than did its domestic rivals, with 17.7% of the mainland Chinese market last year. China International Capital is the closest runner-up, with 15.3%, though Citic falls to third behind CICC and Switzerland's UBS when Hong Kong is included. It also leads in managing funds for Chinese investors. Its wholly owned China Asset Management unit has about 250 billion yuan, or $36.6 billion, in assets under management, accounting for about 5% of the fund-management market.

But owning both has become a problem. As Beijing looks to tighten lending to keep China's go-go economy reined in, a slew of Chinese companies are planning rights offerings to raise capital. In a rights issue, shareholders are granted the right to buy more shares at a set price, often a discount to the current price.

In developed markets those rights typically take the form of tradable securities, similar to warrants. This enables shareholders who don't want to buy the new shares to sell the rights to someone who does. But China doesn't allow the rights to be traded, forcing a company to either buy shares it doesn't want or forfeit the right altogether.

Chinese regulations also forbid a fund-management company from subscribing to a share issue underwritten by its largest shareholders. In many cases, China Asset Management is a significant shareholder in many Chinese companies by virtue of the funds it manages.

That puts Citic Securities in a tough position. It can direct its fund management company to forfeit the rights in order to win a share of the business underwriting rights offerings, a move that deprives the fund of buying new shares as a discount. Or China Asset Management's funds can participate in the rights offerings, while Citic Securities gives up on much of the underwriting.

Citic Securities has chosen the latter. So far, it hasn't bid to underwrite rights issues in China by China Merchants Bank, Bank of Communications, China Industrial Bank and Bank of Nanjing.

At the behest of the securities regulator, Citic Securities put 51% of China Asset Management on the market last year. But it may struggle to find one firm with sufficient resources willing to take a majority stake.

Citic Securities isn't the only securities firm facing this conundrum, though it is by far the largest. China Merchants Securities, which has a majority stake in China Merchants Fund Management, also has to make the choice been underwriting and subscribing to rights issues. The firm declined to comment.

Still, Beijing may have good reason to be wary of creating another tradable assets class. Warrants, introduced in 2005, were subject to huge trading volume as speculators piled into the novel, little understood product, only to get burned when markets moved against them.

Citic Securities is likely to have a good year regardless. It is underwriting Agricultural Bank of China's initial public offering, which could be one of the largest in history. It also is on board to underwrite Industrial & Commercial Bank of China's stock offering once it is approved by Beijing, and it will probably bid for China Construction Bank's new share issue despite it being a rights issue.

But it might see itself losing ground in its home market just as it starts making a mark overseas.

中信证券股份有限公司(Citic Securities)有雄心成为中国的高盛(Goldman Sachs)。但该公司赢得新业务的最新努力却遭遇了阻碍，这彰显出中国年轻的金融体系在成熟过程中所存在的缺陷。

中信证券隶属于业务范围广泛的国有控股企业中信集团公司(Citic Group)，按资产规模衡量它是中国最大的经纪公司，也是中国最具雄心的本土证券公司。中信证券多年来一直寻求与海外投资银行建立业务关系，这种联系有助于中信证券将其国际业务扩展到香港以外。最近几个月，中信证券已经与东方汇理银行(Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank)达成协议，两公司将尝试将双方的全球股票业务合并在一起。

Dealogic提供的数据显示，中信证券在承销新发行股票方面获得的服务费收入居国内同行之首，去年在中国这块市场的占有率达到17.7%。中国国际金融有限公司(China International Capital Corp.)的市场占有率紧随其后，为15.3%，但如果计算进在香港市场获得的这项收入，中信证券的排名则跌至第三位，低于中国国际金融有限公司和瑞士的瑞银(UBS)。中信证券在为中国投资者理财方面也居于领先地位。其全资子公司华夏基金管理有限公司(China Asset Management Co.)管理的资产约为人民币2,500亿元，合366亿美元，约占理财市场总额的5%。

但同时拥有股票承销和理财两项业务也给中信证券造成了问题。由于北京希望收紧信贷以抑制中国经济过快增长，一系列中国企业正计划通过配股来筹集资金。在配股时，企业股东会被授予以设定价格购买公司更多股票的权利，这一价格通常会低于股票的当前价格。

在发达国家市场上，这些购股权通常会以可交易证券的形式出现，与认股权证类似。这使得不想购买新股的股东可以把购股权出售给想买的人。但中国不允许交易这种购股权，这迫使企业要么买它不想要的股票，要么干脆放弃购股权。

中国的监管法规还禁止基金管理公司认购由其最大股东承销的股票。而华夏基金管理有限公司由于其所管理资金的缘故，在许多情况下会成为中国不少企业的大股东。

这使得中信证券处境艰难。为了赢得股票承销业务，中信证券可以下令华夏基金管理公司放弃购股权，但这会剥夺该公司折价购买新股的机会。而如果华夏基金管理公司参与新股认购，中信证券就必须放弃其大部分股票承销业务。

中信证券选择了后者。迄今为止它已放弃申请承销招商银行(China Merchants Bank)、交通银行(Bank of Communications)、兴业银行(China Industrial Bank)和南京银行(Bank of Nanjing)新发行的股票。

依照证券监管部门的要求，中信证券去年将华夏基金管理有限公司51%的股权在市场上挂牌出售。但它可能不那么容易找到一家有雄厚财力又愿意收购华夏基金管理公司多数股权的企业。

虽然面临这种难题的并非只有中信证券一家证券公司，但中信证券却是迄今为止面临这一困境的企业中规模最大的。招商证券(China Merchants Securities)拥有招商基金管理有限公司(China Merchants Fund Management)的多数股权，它也必须在承销新股和认购新股之间做出选择。该公司拒绝对此发表评论。

不过，北京可能有理由对创造出另一种可交易的资产类别心存疑虑。当中国在2005年推出认股权证时，由于投机者纷纷涉足这种人们了解不多的新奇产品，认股权证创下了巨大的交易量，但这些投机者没成想却被不利的市场行情打了个措手不及。

虽然如此，中信证券今年预计仍会有不错的业务表现。它正在承销中国农业银行(Agricultural Bank of China)在首次公开募股中发行的股票，这次发行有可能成为有史以来世界上最大规模的首次公开募股交易。如果中国工商银行(Industrial & Commercial Bank of China)的股票发行获得中国政府批准，中信证券也将参与股票承销，该公司还有可能申请承销中国建设银行发行的新股。

但就在中信证券开始在海外市场取得建树之际，它却可能在本土市场丧失地盘。