饥荒联机版路牌传送:“影子银行”在中国蔓延

“影子银行”在中国蔓延

Shadow Banking Is Growing In China

        More than a quarter of pre-tax profits at China’s Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Holdings in the second quarter came from an unexpected source – not its core shipyard business, but from lending money to other companies.In a similar vein, China Mobile has set up a finance arm to lend money, while PetroChina has a number of financial vehicles in place.

        They are part of a growing number of Chinese companies using excess cash to fund indirectly the country’s shadow banking system as Beijing’s monetary tightening makes it more difficult for small and medium-sized groups to access the formal banking sector.At the same time it allows the companies – some estimates say 90 per cent of the shadow lenders are state-owned – to make healthier returns than they could by leaving the cash on deposit.

        “Everyone does it; they just don’t tell you,” says Vincent Chan, equity strategist for Credit Suisse in Hong Kong. “The difference with Yangzijiang is that they do it in the listed entity, not at the group or parent level.”

        China Economic Daily reported that 64 listed non-financial companies had issued loans this year as of the end of August. It said that they had lent a total of $16.9bn, up 38.2 per cent from last year, according to stock market filings.Of these companies, 35 lent at rates higher than the standard bank rate, with the highest at a 24.5 per cent annualised rate. The report added that at least nine out of 10 companies engaged in lending were state owned, such as China Railway Group and the property arm of China food group Cofco.That so many industrial companies, like Singapore-listed Yangzijiang, have turned themselves into quasi-financiers is a symptom of the economic distortions in China. The country’s regulated interest rates mean that borrowers in the official sector can obtain money at artificially low rates while less favoured borrowers have to pay far higher rates in the grey market.

        The problem has become more acute since the banks were instructed by the government to rein in credit after a lending explosion over the past two years that had fuelled growth but also inflation which increased to 6.5 per cent in August.

        Analysts say the annual capital flows in the shadow market could involve as much as Rmb2,000bn ($310bn), or about 5 per cent of gross domestic product.

  Many state owned enterprises have separate financing arms. For example, in August, China Mobile announced it was establishing a finance company to lend out money at higher interest rates than the 2.2 per cent it gleans from the deposits it places in the officially regulated banking sector. In a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, it said China Mobile Finance would be capitalised with Rmb5bn.“As the business of the group continues to grow, it has become increasingly important to better leverage the advantages on capital resources to improve the overall economic benefits of the group,” China Mobile said.

        According to its 2011 interim report, as of the end of June, China Mobile had Rmb218bn on deposit with the banks, Rmb113bn in cash and cash equivalents and Rmb3.5bn in interest income.

        PetroChina has an asset management arm, a trust bank, a commercial bank and an internal finance unit. Baosteel Group has a 98 per cent stake in Fortune Trust, the trust firm, while Hunan Valin Iron and Steel Group has 49 per cent of Huachen Trust.