【英语中国】不可忽略中国国有银行政策风险

David Smith

The impending initial public offering of Agricultural Bank of China opens a new opportunity for investors to look in on Chinese banks in general. Much of the coverage of ABC has focused on questions of valuation and potential investor interest -- and the fact that it may become the largest-ever IPO, despite being the weakest of China's large state-owned financial institutions. Yet as big as the ABC story is, it's obscuring an even bigger trend: Chinese banks are raising capital en masse, and for reasons that bear careful scrutiny.

ABC is due to raise about $23 billion when it comes to market next month. Meanwhile, Bank of China issued convertible bonds worth 40 billion yuan ($5.9 billion) this month, while Bank of Communications plans a 33.1-billion-yuan rights issue soon. And Industrial and Commercial Bank of China will issue 25 billion yuan in convertible bonds. China Minsheng Banking Corp. recently received regulatory approval to sell 5.8 billion yuan of subordinated bonds, and China CITIC Bank won approval for the issuance of up to 25 billion yuan of subordinated and/or hybrid bonds.

This trend appears similar to Western banks that have been forced to raise capital as they've written off distressed securities during the financial crisis. But the Chinese fundraising is different: It is symptomatic of the extent to which China's big banks are still creatures of government policy instead of the market. The need to bring in more cash stems from two years of sustained, state-directed lending. In its shareholder circular announcing new capital raising, ICBC wrote: 'In 2009, while the Bank was conscientiously implementing the State's macro economy policy, proactively increasing the grant of good quality credit, and playing its role as a large bank to promote economic development, the rapid increase in the risk-weighted assets and more stringent capital regulatory requirements added certain pressures to the Bank in maintaining its capital adequacy level.'

Capital adequacy ratios, which compare capital held by banks to loans outstanding, have fallen between December 2008 and December 2009: to 11.1 from 13.4 at Bank of China; to 12 from 13.5 at Bank of Communications; and to 12.4 from 13.1 at ICBC. Those differences in the ratios might seem small, but when projected onto the size of these banks' balance sheets they suggest large-scale funding requirements. Late last year BNP Paribas estimated that if all 11 of China's listed banks were to raise their tier-1 capital adequacy (the capital adequacy ratio counting only the most liquid assets as 'capital') to 9%-10% and their overall capital adequacy to 11%-12%, they would need to raise roughly 300 billion yuan.

This has several implications for existing and prospective shareholders. Government policy is, effectively, to expect private-sector minority shareholders and debt holders to share the costs of Beijing's stimulus policies. The government would subscribe for shares as part of the rights issue, and may subscribe for some debt issues. But the large volumes of money being raised by Chinese banks will squeeze minority investors who will have to either pay up or suffer a significant dilution of their holdings. And investors in Chinese banks have little or no say in the process thanks to the government's majority voting share in each bank. This contrasts with the similar though not exactly analogous situation at Prudential in Britain, where shareholders recently voiced dissatisfaction at a rights issue that would have funded an acquisition, forcing management to try to renegotiate parts of the deal.

More broadly, this capital-raising is a warning that China's banks are not quite as reformed as investors hoped. A decade ago, Beijing spun off around 1.4 trillion yuan of nonperforming loans from the big four banks at book value, transferring them to newly created, off-balance-sheet 'asset-management companies,' and instituted better risk management and internal controls. This seeming promise that the banks would be operated on commercial principles made them very appealing to investors -- they would be perfectly situated in one of the fastest-growing industrial economies with good asset bases and customers, and could serve as a proxy for overall Chinese economic growth.

But now significant policy risks are resurfacing. This has been most obvious in the market's pricing of the ABC offering, which is rumored to be running at a price-to-book ratio of around 1.6. According to a recent Bank of America Merrill Lynch report, the other three large banks trade at an average of around 1.8 times price-to-book, well off their highs of only a few years ago. Investors expect ABC to retain its policy mandate of rural lending and the attendant risks that Beijing could dictate that bank management make nonmarket-based decisions periodically.

Some may see this is a risk worth taking, but to overlook the policy role of Chinese banks is folly on the part of investors. They must be aware that as the economic cycle turns, the capital needs of Chinese banks will be driven not only by commercial considerations but by government policy aims. For minority investors this could be an unsettling prospect.

Mr. Smith is head of Asia research at Institutional Shareholder Services, a proxy-advisory service.

David Smith

即将首次公开募股的中国农业银行（Agricultural Bank of China，以下简称农行）为投资者开辟了一个从宏观上审视中国银行业的新机会。近日来媒体对农行的报道主要聚焦于以下几个方面：估值和潜在投资者的兴趣，以及尽管作为中国实力最弱的国有银行，农行的首次公开募股依然可能成为史上最大的IPO这一事实。虽然农行的上市愿景宏大，但它却掩盖了一个更大的趋势：中国的各家商业银行正同时大量融资，但融资的原因却值得深究。

下月上市的农行计划募集资金230亿美元。与此同时，6月份中国银行（Bank of China）已经发行了价值400亿人民币（约合59亿美元）的可转债，而交通银行（Bank of Communications）则计划发行总值约330亿人民币的配股。中国工商银行（Industrial and Commercial Bank of China）也将发行价值250亿人民币的可转债。中国民生银行则于近日获批出售价值58亿人民币的次级债券，而中信银行则获批发行最多价值250亿人民币的次级债或混合债券。

眼下这股趋势和西方银行在金融危机期间将受压证券成功冲销以后被迫筹集资金的情况类似。但中国的情况还是略有不同：中国的大型国有银行在很大程度上依然受政府政策影响，而不是依据市场状况来经营。筹集资金的需求源于持续两年的，由国家引导的大规模信贷投放。在一份致股东的公告中，中国工商银行解释了新一轮筹资的原因，“2009年，我行在认真贯彻国家宏观调控政策，积极增加优质信贷投放，发挥大银行支持经济发展作用的同时，随着风险加权资产增加较快和资本监管更趋严格，维持资本充足水平面临一定压力。”

中国各家银行的资本充足比率（指银行持有的资本和未偿债项的比率）在2008年12月至2009年12月间出现了回落：中国银行从13.4下跌至11.1；交通银行则从13.5下跌至12；而中国工商银行则从13.1下跌至12.4。 跌幅看上去很小，但是考虑到这些银行庞大的资产负债规模，这将意味着大量的融资需求。去年年底法国巴黎银行（BNP Paribas）估计，如果中国的全部11家上市银行将一级资本充足率（该指标在统计资本的时候，只计算流动性最强的资产。）提升至9％或10％，并将总体资本充足率提升至11％或12％，大约需要筹集3000亿人民币的资金。

这将对现有和潜在的股东造成许多影响。政府希望私营企业的少数股东和债权人共同承担四万亿刺激政策的成本。作为发行配股的一部分，中央政府将认购部分股票，并可能认购一些债券。 但各家商业银行的大量融资将挤出许多中小投资者，他们或将遭受现金损失，或将遭受股权的大量稀释。在此过程中，由于中央政府在各家银行持有大量有表决权的股份，各家银行的中小投资者并无多少发言权。 这和英国保诚集团（Prudential）的问题有几分类似，但后者的处理结果却完全不同：就公司拟发行配股以资助某项并购，股东表示了不满，最终迫使管理层重新协商部分交易条款。

更宽泛地说，这种大规模融资是一个警告：中国的银行业并不如投资者所希望看到的那样进行了彻底的改革。十年前，中央政府以账面价值从四大国有银行剥离约1.4万亿不良贷款，将其转移至新设立的，作为表外资产存在的“资产管理公司”，同时建立更好的风险管理和内部控制机制。表面上看，这些银行承诺按照商业原则经营运作，这令它们在投资者眼中深具吸引力：置身于一个全球增长最快的经济体中，且具有良好的资产基础和客户资源，中国的商业银行无疑成为了中国经济增长的最佳代言。

如今重大的政策风险再次显现。农行的首发定价就是一个最明显的例子：据传此次农行首发的市帐率仅为1.6。美银美林（Bank of America Merrill Lynch）最近的一份报告指出，其它三大国有银行首发时的市帐率也只有约1.8倍，明显低于几年前的历史高位水平。投资者预计，农行将继续保持其作为农村信贷的政策性银行的地位，但不可忽视的伴生风险是中央政府可能定期指示银行管理层做出非市场化的决策。

某些人可能将此视为可以接受的风险，但对投资者而言，忽视中国国有银行所扮演的政策性角色是愚蠢的。他们必须清醒地意识到，随着经济周期的转换，国有银行的融资需求将大大扩张，这不仅是出于商业上的考虑，也受到了中央政府的政策目标的左右。对于中小投资者而言，这将是一个令人不安的前景。

（编者按：本文作者David Smith是股东投票授权咨询机构Institutional Shareholder Services亚洲研究负责人。）