Lex live: China’s stock market
A policy of capitalism with socialist characteristics is not compatible with a healthy stock market. China’s domestic Shanghai market, now trading around a six-year low, gives retail investors a stake in cursorily profitable entities that remain firmly under state control.
The government stakes, worth $260bn - or roughly double the listed portion - are both a technical overhang and a structural constraint. Beijing treats its listed vehicles as cash cows or captive buyers for state assets. PetroChina, for example, last year topped up state coffers with $5bn in dividends.
Now Beijing is taking a third stab at removing the overhang. Its plan to dump shares on the market is flawed: selling more of companies that should never have been listed in the first place merely increases capital misallocation and downward pressure on prices. Sany Heavy, one of the four pioneering sellers, is a case in point. It is worth one-fifth less than it was when it listed two years ago and its first-quarter profits dropped by nearly a third.
Serious reform - such as delisting dud companies - would risk alienating hordes of retail investors. But Beijing could mitigate the blow by packaging government shares in the better companies into a giant tracker fund or by transferring stock into welfare funds. Without tough action, the market looks neither socialist nor capitalist. Workers take less of the pie, and the listed portion of China’s stock market - a country growing at an annual 9 per cent clip - is worth less than the UK drugs sector.
Lex专栏：股市的中国特色
具有社会主义特色的资本主义政策与健康的股市并不相容。中国国内的上海股市目前接近6年低点，该市场向散户投资者提供一些国有企业的股份，这些看上去还能赢利的企业目前仍牢牢掌握在政府手中。
政府持有的股份价值2600亿美元，约为上市流通股份的两倍，它既在技术上是一种悬置的负担，又是一个结构性束缚。中国政府将其上市企业当作摇钱树或国有资产的受控制买方(captive buyer)。如中国石油(PetroChina)去年就以50亿美元股息充盈了国库。
现在中国政府正试图第三次解除这种悬置负担。政府的市场减持方案存有缺陷：出售更多原本就不该上市的公司股票，只会加剧错误的资本配置，并对股价造成向下压力。三一重工(Sany Heavy)是四家减持试点公司之一，就是一个例证。现在该公司的股价比两年前上市时低了五分之一，今年第一季利润下降了近三分之一。
破产公司退市等严肃的改革措施可能会令散户投资群体远离股市。但中国政府可将质量较好公司的国有股打包成一个规模庞大的指数追踪基金，或将国有股过户给社保基金，以此减轻对市场的冲击。如果没有强硬的措施，市场看上去既不像社会主义，也不像资本主义。工人只分到很小一块蛋糕。在中国这个年增长率达9%的国家，股市可流通部分的价值比英国医药类股的市值还要小。
