The Guardian - China-Chinese shadow bank admits 30bn shortfall after management ran wild
November 23, 2023 3 min 570 words
这则报道揭示了中国金融体系中一家庞大的影子银行——众智公司的财务困境。其巨额缺口暴露了管理混乱和高管离职所导致的“严重资不抵债”局面。众智的问题首次显现于其信托公司中，暴露了该公司与中国不景气的房地产市场的联系。中国的庞大影子银行体系通过向零售投资者销售理财产品运作，而这些资金往往流向面临流动性危机的房地产部门。报道指出，房地产危机已拖累中国经济增长，导致全国范围内的未完成楼盘和购房者拒付尚未建成的房屋贷款。众智的问题重新引发对中国经济的蔓延担忧，尤其是在经历了2020年监管风暴和严格的COVID限制后，房地产行业仍在努力复苏。报道提到政府加大了解决房地产危机的力度，呼吁正式银行增加对50家大型开发商的支持。这一事件突显了中国金融领域的挑战，也凸显了监管的紧迫性。在这种情况下，我们要密切关注政府和金融监管机构的应对措施，以防止金融体系的进一步动荡。
One of China’s biggest financial conglomerates with links to the country’s ailing property market has admitted a shortfall of nearly £30bn as it warned investors that it is “severely insolvent”.
Zhongzhi, an asset and wealth management company in China’s shadow banking sector, said its total assets amounted to 200bn yuan (£22.5bn) against obligations of up to 460bn yuan, in a letter to shareholders issued on Wednesday.
In the letter, the company blamed its brewing insolvency crisis on the departure of several senior executives, which left a situation in which “internal management ran wild”, the Financial Times reported.
The group’s troubles first came to light when one of its trust companies, Zhongrong International Trust Co, missed payments on several investment products over the summer. Zhongrong’s assets are thought to be largely property-related.
China’s vast shadow banking system – which operates outside the regulations that govern traditional banks – involves selling wealth management products to retail investors. That financing then often flows into the property sector, which has faced a liquidity crisis in recent years as Beijing imposed strict limits on debt levels for property developers.
The property crisis has proved a drag on China’s economic growth, with apartments left unfinished across the country and homebuyers refusing to pay mortgages on unbuilt units.
In March, about 7% of the value of trust funds such as Zhongzhi’s products was exposed to real estate, according to data cited by the Japanese bank Nomura. That was the equivalent of 1.13tn yuan, although Nomura estimated that the actual level of developers’ borrowings could be far greater, given the lack of transparency in the sector.
In its letter, Zhongzhi said: “The group deeply apologises for the losses caused to investors. We fully understand the urgency, importance and seriousness of resolving this overall risk.”
Beijing has stepped up efforts to solve China’s property crisis, calling on formal banks to increase their support for 50 large developers including Country Garden, the country’s largest real estate company, which defaulted for the first time last month. Country Garden’s share price rallied after Beijing’s intervention, which was reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday but has yet to be announced officially.
The government is expected to instruct banks to plug a shortfall worth $446bn (£356bn) in the property sector.
Zhongzhi’s troubles have reignited concerns about contagion in China’s economy as the property industry, which is worth up to one-third of Chinese gross domestic product, struggles to recover after a regulatory storm in 2020 and strictCovid restrictions.
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But some analysts said Beijing would probably intervene before Zhongzhi’s troubles could spread.
Christopher Beddor, the deputy director of China research at the research firm Gavekal Dragonomics, said: “Financial regulators are almost certain to intervene aggressively if there’s any sign that Zhongzhi’s troubles are spreading.”
However, other experts said the state would be unlikely to bail out the company because the trust industry only accounted for about 5% of the total financial system, and most of Zhongzhi’s creditors were wealthy individual investors.
Additional reporting from Reuters