Chinese financial sector: there be storms and shaols

(Backgrounder: Temasek has biggish stakes in three out of the four major  Chinese banks: doesn’t have shares in Agricultural Bank and CapLand is big and bullish on China).

Credit issues in Pearl Estuary region:  http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2013/03/27/chinese-credit-alarms-sound-in-the-east/

And New rules will force mainstream lenders to cap their exposure to some of the riskier off-balance sheet products they have sold to customers – in particular, those that are effectively repackaged corporate debt. That limits a big source of risk for banks, but creates a new one for the Chinese economy.

http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2013/03/28/china-shadow-bank-curbs-attack-symptom-not-cause/

The junk bond market in China took off this year. Although the deals still account for a small share of the global total, Chinese companies have sold $8 billion of high-yield bonds to overseas investors since January. That’s up from $2.3 billion during the same period a year earlier, according to figures from Dealogic … the Chinese market has its own set of potential problems, and some analysts worry that investors aren’t being properly compensated for the added layer of risks.

he bulk of the high-yield bonds in Asia this year — roughly half — come from Chinese real estate companies. The fear is that the housing market, which has been booming, is a bubble that will eventually burst.

Mainland China’s domestic bond market remains largely off limits to foreign buyers. So most investors buy offshore Chinese bonds, which are issued through holding companies headquartered in places like the Cayman Islands.

The bonds tend not to be backed by the actual businesses and underlying assets in mainland China. That means foreign bondholders may have little legal recourse if a company defaults on its debt, especially if local banks or other Chinese creditors make claims.

Bondholders are now facing such difficulties with the bankruptcy of Suntech Power.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/as-pace-of-chinas-junk-bond-sales-grows-so-do-worries/?nl=business&emc=edit_dlbkpm_20130328

Reasons why Cina banks deserve their deratings

 http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2012/10/30/three-reasons-chinas-banks-deserve-their-derating/

For the record, Temasek has big stakes in three of the four biggest banks. Cheong all the way?

Temasek: Rebalancing its Chinese bank portfolio

Last month, Temasek bought US$2.3bn worth of shares in Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), taking its overall stake in the bank to 1.3%. I commented that it was increasing its bet on the big Chinese banks (it owned big stakes in three of them) when the mood on them was getting bearish.

Well it is now sell US$2.4bn worth of its shares in Bank of China and China Construction Bank.

So overall, it is reducing its stakes in BoC and CCB (locking in some profits: it got into these at very attractive prices as a cornerstone pre-IPO investor) while adding a stake in ICBC to the mix at a slight discount to the market.

Update on 4 May 2012 at 3.10pm: More details http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-02/temasek-selling-2-4-billion-in-boc-china-construction.html

Temasek’s Chinese banks have an unending appetite for capital

Regular readers will know that Temasek’s investments in Bank of China and China Construction Bank are great investments. It came in as a pre-IPO cornerstone investor and unlike the Western banks that had similar status had not sold out. Gd friend of China. It trades out and in of these stocks to make realised profits. But these trading profits are peanuts as the trading positions are peanuts in relation to its holdings in these banks

And that it recently bot Goldman Sach’s remaining stake in ICBC, at a slight discount to its mkt price. 

As this article explains these banks have an unending appetite for capital because they are “squeezed for capital”. So Temasek has to be willing to cough up more of our money if it wants to avoid being diluted when rights issues are called.

Analysing Temasek’s investment in another Chinese bank

Temasek has agreed to buy Goldman Sachs’s shares in the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world’s largest bank. It will buy US$2.3bn worth of ICBC shares, taking its stake to 1.3% in the bank.

In an interview with Reuters at the end of March, Ho Ching’s presumed successor-in-training, Temasek’s head of portfolio management,acknowledged the heavy allocation to financials, but noted that it holds four very good banks: Bank of China, China Construction Bank, DBS Group and Standard Chartered. Well it has added ICBC to this list, and at a price close to the market price, unlike the stakes in the other two Chinese banks where it got a “special” price as a pre-IPO cornerstone investor.

But is it a wise move?

True, since the lows last October of the Chinese and HK stock markets, the shares of the four leading Chinese banks (including Bank of China, China Construction Bank and ICBC) have gone up by more than half, easily outperforming the broader market.

But since March, prices have been off (but masked by general market falls) because of concerns abt China’s growth, bad loans and comments by the  Chinese PM, Wen Jiabao, who hinted  of breaking the monopoly state-owned lenders have enjoyed in China’s banking sector. (The sector is dominated by four big state-owned banks and Temasek now has significant stakes in three of them.)

Mr Wen said that their monopoly was hurting businesses in the country, as they had few options to raise capital.

“Frankly, our banks make profits far too easily. Why? Because a small number of major banks occupy a monopoly position, meaning one can only go to them for loans and capital,” he was quoted as saying by China National Radio. “That’s why right now, as we’re dealing with the issue of getting private capital into the finance sector, essentially, that means we have to break up their monopoly.”

The lack of easy availability of capital has often been cited as threat to growth of small and medium-sized businesses in China. There have been fears that some of these businesses, seen as key to China’s growth, may turn to unofficial sectors for capital, increasing their borrowing costs substantially

But Temasek could be betting on, “Wen has one year left [in his term].” This was said by an unnamed Chinese state banker quoted by Reuters. “This is a task for the next generation of leaders. It cannot be accomplished within one year.”

But the banker could be wrong, Wen could be telling us what has been agreed upon between his generation and the next generation of leaders.

Remember, It took a beating on its finance industry holdings after the 2008 crisis, losing about $5 billion in stakes held in Barclays and Merrill Lynch, now part of Bank of America. It has since trimmed its financial holdings by 4 percentage points to 36 percent of the portfolio. Last month, it sold a 1.4 percent stake in India’s No.2 lender ICICI Bank. From said Reuters reported.

And of the remaining two “very good banks” where Temasek has significant stakes, DBS has juz decided to buy Temasek’s stake in Bank Danamon. Management will now be preoccupied with getting the deal approved by the Indonesian authorities, then integrating the bank into DBS. Before this deal, management had finally got to grips with DBS’s operational problems. The danger is that the focus on the Danamon deal may lead to backsliding in the area of operatons.

The genuine jewel is StanChart, but by global standards, it is “peanuts”.

Temask: Profitable holdings require more $

Err the SDP and its new media allies will spin this as: “Profitable investments — requires more money. Waz happening Temasek?”

As you will be aware Temasek has stakes in two Chinese banks; 4% in Bank of China, and 6% of  China Construction Bank Corporation. These stakes are profitable.

But Temasek would need to invest more if it wants to maintain the size of its stake because they need a lot more capital.

China’s four biggest publicly traded banks (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of Communications , Bank of China, China Construction Bank ) could face a combined capital shortfall of at least Rmb480bn (US$70bn) over the next five years, according to the president of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, reports the FT.

All these banks have announced plans in the past month to raise fresh capital after orders to lend liberally last year. But the total amounts they plan to raise fall far short of the five-year estimate of Yang Kaisheng, ICBC president.

Poor Temasek: nothing satisfies critics gunning for you.