纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英中国房地产危机如何导致最安全的投资爆雷

One of China’s largest investment firms, Citic Trust, had a clear pitch to investors when it was aiming to raise $1.7 billion to fund property development in 2020: There is no safer Chinese investment than real estate.

2020年，作为中国最大的投资公司之一，中信信托在筹集120亿元人民币资金用于房地产开发时给投资人打了这样的包票：在中国，没有比房地产更安全的投资了。

The trust, the investment arm of the state-owned financial conglomerate Citic, called housing “China’s economic ballast” and “an indispensable value investment.” The money it raised would be put toward four projects from Sunac China Holdings, a major developer.

中信信托是国有金融集团中信的投资部门，将房地产称为“中国经济压舱石”和“资产配置中不可缺少的价值投资”。该信托将筹集的资金投入到了大型开发商融创中国控股有限公司的四个项目中。

Three years later, investors who put their money in the Citic fund have recouped only a small fraction of their investment. Three of the fund’s construction projects are on hold or significantly delayed because of financing problems or poor sales. Sunac has defaulted and is trying to restructure its debt.

三年后，把钱投进中信基金的投资人仅收回了一小部分资金。该基金投资的三处项目都因资金问题或销售不佳被迫停工或严重延期。已经出现违约的融创正在试图重组债务。

The unraveling of the Citic fund provides a window into the broader problems facing China’s ailing property sector. What started as a housing slump has escalated into a full-blown crisis. The budgets of local governments, which depended on revenue from real estate, have been destabilized. The shock to the country’s financial system has drained China’s capital markets.

中信基金的爆雷成了外界窥探萧条的中国房地产业里更大问题的窗口。最初的楼市低迷已经演变成了一场全面危机。依赖房地产收入的地方政府预算不断恶化。中国金融体系受到冲击，资本市场已被掏空。

The nexus of government, financial institutions and companies supercharged China’s property sector for years, clearing the way for the nonstop building that propelled real estate to become the biggest sector of the economy. But the ties that once juiced growth are now deepening the downturn as problems spread across the economy.

多年来，政府、金融机构和企业的利益挂钩推动了中国房地产业的突飞猛进，一刻不停地动工让房地产变成了中国经济体量最大的部门。但随着房地产困境蔓延至整个经济，曾经推动增长的纽带如今正导致衰退愈演愈烈。

This month, China South City Holdings, a state-backed developer, warned that it did not have the funds to pay interest on its overseas debt, and investors agreed to restructure the debt to stave off a possible default. And Hywin Wealth Management, a major real estate investor, said it had to delay some redemption payments, citing “the economic downturn.”

本月，政府支持的开发商华南城公告称已无足够的资金支付海外债务利息，投资者同意重组债务以避免可能出现的违约。重仓房地产的投资公司海银财富则以“经济下行”为由，不得不将部分赎回延期。

Confidence in the investment sector was already shaky. In November, a financial giant managing $140 billion in assets, Zhongzhi Enterprise Group, told investors that it was “severely insolvent.” Zhongzhi’s wealth management arm started missing payments to investors in July and said it had a $36 billion financial shortfall.

外界对投资业的信心已经动摇。11月，管理资产规模约1万亿元的金融巨头中植企业集团告知投资者，集团已“严重资不抵债”。中植的财富管理部门从7月开始拖欠投资者款项，并称资金缺口高达2600亿元。

For its part, China’s central government pledged this month to “actively and prudently resolve real estate risks” and help firms to meet their “reasonable financing needs.” The problems have gotten big enough that it seemed Beijing, which has yet to offer lifelines to troubled developers, was finally signaling its willingness to step in after more than 50 companies have defaulted on loans since 2021.

而中国中央政府本月承诺要“积极稳妥化解房地产风险”，满足房地产企业的“合理融资需求”。看来情况终于严重到让北京表示有意介入，自2021年以来有50多家企业发生违约，但北京一直没有为陷入困境的开发商纾困。

“Three years ago, nobody would have dreamed of this amount of defaulting,” said Andrew Collier, managing director at Orient Capital, an economic research firm in Hong Kong. “It is pretty staggering.”

“三年前，没人能料到会出现如此大规模的违约，”香港经济研究公司东方资本的董事总经理安德鲁·科利尔表示。“真是触目惊心。”

Investors were confident in real estate.

投资者曾对房地产充满信心。

Trust firms like Citic are arms of China’s so-called shadow banking system that sell investment products to companies and wealthy individuals. They face few requirements to publicly disclose information about their operations and as a group manage $3 trillion in assets.

中信这样的信托公司是中国所谓影子银行系统的分支，向企业和富人出售投资产品。这些公司几乎不需要公开披露业务信息，但却管理着总计超21万亿元的资产。

Property developers had relied on trust firms to extend loans and invest in businesses that regulators considered too risky for traditional banks. The trusts turned the loans into investment products they then sold to Chinese companies and wealthy individuals, promising lucrative returns.

就是靠这些信托公司的贷款，房地产开发商才得以投资监管机构认定对传统银行而言风险过大的业务。这些信托将贷款转化为投资产品出售给中国企业和富人，承诺将带来丰厚的回报。

The market was booming when Citic Trust established the Junkun Equity Fund, raising $1.7 billion for Sunac to use. With real estate prices soaring, when Sunac’s projects moved forward and the properties were sold, investors would get their money back as well as a portion of the profit after three years. The payoff for the Junkun fund, one of hundreds that Citic Trust offered, was potentially higher than an investment with a fixed return, but there was also more risk.

在中信信托推出君琨股权基金为融创募集120亿元之时，市场还欣欣向荣。在房价飙升的情况下，融创只要继续推进项目卖掉房子，投资者就能在三年后收回本金并拿到部分利润。君琨股权基金是中信信托发行的数以百计的基金之一，其收益率可能高于固定回报的投资，但风险也更大。

Even though Citic did not guarantee how much money investors would make, it included in marketing materials a chart of “similar projects” from Sunac that had delivered double-digit returns.

虽然中信没有保证投资者到底能赚多少钱，但其营销材料中包含了融创“同类项目”的业绩图表，承诺收益率可达两位数。

At least that’s the way it was supposed to work.

反正，饼是这样画的。

Celina Zhang said she invested about $420,000, a significant chunk of her savings, into this fund in 2020, because Citic Trust was a reliable, big brand. A Citic investment manager all but assured her that she would get her principal back and annual returns exceeding 7.5 percent, Ms. Zhang said.

塞琳娜·张（音）说自己在2020年拿出300万元——这是她很大一笔积蓄——投资了该基金。她说中信的投资经理几乎等于向她打了包票，称她一定会收回本金，而且投资年回报率能超过7.5%。

“At that time, I was fairly confident in real estate,” said Ms. Zhang, 38, who lives in the southern Chinese city Shenzhen. “Housing prices were all rising.”

“当时对房地产还算是比较有信心，”现年38岁、生活在中国南方城市深圳的塞琳娜·张说。“因为所有的房子都在涨。”

But from the outset, the developments faced challenges. The projects were a combination of residential and commercial properties in three southern cities — Chengdu, Guiyang and Shaoxing — and one in Xi’an in central China. And like the rest of the world, China was grappling with Covid. Pandemic restrictions caused construction delays and hurt property sales.

但开发从一开始就面临了挑战。这些项目既有住宅楼盘也有商业地产，分别位于成都、贵阳和绍兴三座南方城市以及西安。与世界其他国家一样，中国饱受新冠病毒困扰。疫情限制导致施工延期也打击了房地产的销售。

Citic Trust, in a statement, said it “has firmly safeguarded the legitimate rights and interests of its clients” and made “some progress” in minimizing risks stemming from the real estate market. It declined to comment on the Junkun fund.

中信信托在一份声明中表示将“坚定维护委托人合法权益”，并在化解房地产领域的项目风险上取得了“一定的进展”。该公司拒绝对君琨股权基金置评。

Sunac did not respond to requests for comment.

融创没有回应置评请求。

Government grew concerned about the market.

政府则愈发担心楼市的情况。

Also around the time the fund was started, policymakers in Beijing, worried about a housing bubble and reckless speculation, put in place new rules aimed at curbing excessive borrowing by developers. This created cash problems for many developers. In May 2022, Sunac said it missed a bond repayment and warned that it would not be able to make other debt payments.

也是在该基金发行前后，已对楼市泡沫和大肆投机深感担忧的北京政策制定者出台了旨在遏制开发商过度借贷的新规定。这让许多开发商的现金流出现问题。2022年5月，融创宣布未能偿付债券，并警告称将无法偿还其他债务。

The impact on the Citic investments was drastic. Citic Trust was forced to suspend construction last year at the Chengdu project.

这给中信的投资产品带来了毁灭性打击。中信信托在去年被迫暂停了成都项目的建设。

A Citic Trust official said in a November investor briefing that it did so because its research showed that demand would remain poor for many months and Covid lockdowns made the situation unpredictable, according to a recording of the briefing reviewed by The New York Times. Citic said it feared that sales could not keep pace with construction costs.

《纽约时报》查阅的一份简报会记录显示，中信信托的一名工作人员在11月的投资人简报会上表示，这样做的原因是公司研究表明，市场需求将在未来很长一段时间保持低迷，新冠封锁措施也让情况变得不可以预测。中信称销售收入恐将难抵建设成本的支出。

For a mixed residential and commercial property project in Shaoxing, a city near the coast famous for its locally produced yellow wine, preliminary sales have been sluggish.

而在以本地黄酒而闻名的沿海城市绍兴，中信投资的住宅商业综合体项目的预售情况也十分低迷。

Citic considered selling the project in January, but it struggled to find a buyer because developers were scaling back, a company official said at the briefing. Then after sales slowed in July, Citic said it decided to try to find a company to invest in the project to help ease the financial burden.

一名中信工作人员在简报会上说，集团曾考虑在1月出售该项目，但由于开发商都在缩减业务，他们很难找到买家。而在经历7月的销售下滑后，中信表示决定尝试寻找一家公司为该项目注资，以帮其缓解财务压力。

In Guiyang, in southwest China, Sunac started construction shortly after acquiring the land-use rights in May 2020 from the city government for about $245 million. But the project has been dogged by a series of stops and starts, including a one-month suspension in August because of “general contracting funding issues,” according to a management report to investors.

在西南城市贵阳，融创于2020年5月斥资17.52亿元从市政府竞得土地使用权不久后就开始动工。但一份给投资者的管理报告显示，该项目的建设遇到一系列顿挫，包括在8月因“总承包资金问题”停工了一个月。

When the Citic investment matured in October, Ms. Zhang said, she received about $80,000 in payouts although it wasn’t clear to her if that was interest on her investment or part of her principal of $420,000.

塞琳娜·张说，当中信产品在10月到期时，她收到了约55万元的款项，但她不清楚这是投资收益还是她300万本金的一部分。

In November, Citic Trust held the briefing to calm investors demanding an explanation for the missed payment in October. In the meeting, a company official said the projects retained some value and expressed hope that the government’s recent policies would help — even though currently there was no “obvious tangible effect.”

11月，中信信托在简报会上安抚了要求其对10月的拖欠偿付拿出解释的投资者。一名公司工作人员在会议上表示，开发项目仍有一些价值，并称希望政府近来的政策能有所帮助——虽然目前还没有“很明显的效果”。

The Citic official acknowledged that the “entire market is not good now,” but she asked for patience.

该中信工作人员承认，“现在整个市场都不好，”但希望投资者能保持耐心。

“The money has not arrived, so everyone will definitely be worried and angry — this is normal,” she said. “But don’t get too angry.”

“这个钱没到，所以大家肯定还是会担心会愤怒，这个都很正常，”她说。“但大家不要真的去上火。”