全球最大IPO是怎样炼成的
Another door opens: how China is ushering its biggest bank to market
Nothing is small about Industrial & Commercial Bank of China. It is China's largest bank by assets and on Friday is to raise at least $19.1bn (￡10.2bn, �15.2bn) in an unprecedented dual Hong Kong and Shanghai listing that will rank as the world's largest ever initial public offering - eclipsing the $18.4bn flotation of Japan's NTT DoCoMo in 1998.
When follow-on placements are exercised, ICBC's take is on course to rise to $21.9bn for the 17 per cent stake being sold. The offer has attracted more than $500bn in orders worldwide - and this for a bank that less than two years ago had bad loans representing as much as 21 per cent of all its lending. Before undergoing a massive restructuring, it had been considered one of China's worst big banks and had to spend nearly a decade at the banking equivalent of a "fat farm", in the words of one investment banker - shedding its excess weight.
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Slimming down has been a painful and expensive process for the bank, created in 1984 when the People's Bank of China ditched its deposit-taking and lending functions to become solely a central bank. ICBC was established to inherit People's Bank branches, staff and a portfolio amounting to about half the country's total loan assets.
Staff have been cut in vast numbers and about $163bn expended by the government to pay off bad loans and get ICBC's balance sheet in order. The bank now has 18,000 branches and 360,000 employees, down from 37,000 and 560,000 respectively at their late-1990s peak.
ICBC's transformation ahead of its IPO, along with similar measures at a number of other state banks, is the result of a hugely ambitious - and domestically controversial - game-plan decided in the late 1990s to clean up the big banks and force them to operate according to international standards. With domestic banks providing 90 per cent of external credit to Chinese enterprises, a weak financial sector had threatened to hobble the economy.
The government's success, so far, has been a surprise even to domestic commentators. "Five years ago, I would have said this was impossible," says Wang Songqi, editor of a Chinese finance magazine called The Banker.
The turning point was the establishment of four dedicated asset management companies in 1999 to resolve non-performing loans at the big four state banks. ICBC was regarded as being ahead only of Agricultural Bank of China, which has so far proved to be too difficult to reform. ICBC was forced to wait while its more solvent peers - Bank of Communications, China Construction Bank and Bank of China - preceded it to market.
The $21.9bn ICBC will raise in Hong Kong and Shanghai follows a series of government-subsidised bad loan disposals, cash injections and asset transfers, the effect of which has been to slash the bank's overall distressed-debt ratio to 4.1 per cent. That enabled the bank to raise $6.1bn earlier this year from the sale of strategic stakes to Goldman Sachs (which has a seat on ICBC's board), Allianz, American Express and China's national social security fund. "The aim is to use external pressure to create internal reform," says MrWang, explaining the rationalefor inviting foreign investors in.
To reform the banks, the government has also tried to reform their hulking state-owned enterprise customers, shutting many of them and attempting to force the surviving companies to operate profitably. ICBC's bad loans resulted largely from government directives to support local state enterprises - something the banks' executives insist they no longer do.
There is some evidence that ICBC and the other big banks have changed their lending policies. Between 2001 and the second quarter of this year, the big banks' share of total assets in China plummeted to 53 per cent from 68 per cent as smaller, local banks entered the market. "The local authorities demand less of the big banks these days, because they have their own financial vehicles," says Mr Wang.
Another key, but largely unremarked, factor in the banks' resuscitation has been the helping hand offered by Beijing's interest rate policies. The central bank has ensured a windfall for banks by keeping deposit rates low, while deregulating lending rates. "By international standards of banking, they have been living off the spread - and, to that extent, they have been beneficiaries of the PBoC's interest rate policies," says Nicholas Lardy of the Institute for International Economics in Washington.
However, Chinese banks also suffer from government policy, which effectively forces them to buy billions of dollars of central bank bills in order to maintain stability of the renminbi, China's currency.
Investors intent on holding ICBC's stock are hoping that the bank will not have to be bailed out again. But while the bank now has a shiny set of new books, it also has the same old management team.
"In preparation for the IPO they have taken out the bad loans but not the bad lenders," says David Webb, a Hong Kong-based independent investor and shareholder rights activist. "It's only a matter of time before more [non-performing loans] accumulate and China has its first post-IPO banking crisis, probably in about five years."
ICBC's four executive directors, led by Jiang Jianqing, the chairman, have been with the bank or China Huarong Asset Management, its dedicated asset management company, for tenures ranging between 19 and 22 years. Of the seven other senior managers highlighted in ICBC's prospectus, five have been with the bank for 13-21 years. All of them managed big regional branches or departments in the late 1980s and 1990s, during which period the bank's bad loan ratio ballooned.
ICBC now has to prove the sceptics wrong and ensure that history does not repeat itself with the bank's newest crop of loans. Ernst & Young, ICBC's own auditor, highlighted precisely this risk in May, when its bad debt disposal arm issued a report that suggested that bad loans at the big four could be as high as $358bn - almost three times the Chinese government's official estimate of $133bn - with another $600bn elsewhere in China's banking system. The report triggered a stinging rebuke from the central bank and was quickly withdrawn by the auditor, which pronounced it "factually inaccurate".
According to Niu Ximing, ICBC's executive vice-president in charge of credit management, by the end of June, 95.2 per cent of ICBC's portfolio was composed of loans issued since January 1 1999. Those loans, he says, have a distressed ratio of just 1.86 per cent. "This is a very real number. Over the past eight years we have basically created a new ICBC which is completely different from the ICBC before 1999."
ICBC can also claim that its internal credit controls are better than those of its counterparts, allowing it to avoid fraud. Mr Niu says ICBC has built a computer system to manage loans, which allows it to bore down to the branch level, giving its head office "effective control over the entire credit process". Loans are cleared only after they are certified by head office.
However, Mr Wang, of The Banker, thinks the exemplary reforms of the bank's structure and formal lending policies have not filtered through to all its branches. He worries that even with computers, it is business as usual at the local level. "Basically, there has been no change," he says. "The stock reform affects the top but in the sub-branches they are still making all their appointments and the like according to the old practices."
That may not matter as long as China's economy continues gusting along. The bank's total assets have expanded by 55 per cent since 2003 to Rmb7,055bn (￡476bn, $893bn, �710bn), with a 27 per cent surge in 2005 alone. And with the encouraging precedents set by Bank of Communications, China Construction Bank and Bank of China in their listings over the past 18 months, it has been all fair sailing for ICBC and its record-breaking IPO. "It's a not a very challenging environment for the banks," observes Mr Lardy.
The key question is what happens when the weather changes. For, like its peers, ICBC has yet to prove it can be a good bank in a storm.
全球最大IPO是怎样炼成的
中
国工商银行(ICBC，简称：工行)一切皆大。以资产计，工行是中国最大的银行，将于周五通过空前的香港和上海两地同步上市，至少筹资191亿美元，成为全球迄今规模最大的首次公开发行(IPO)，超过日本NTT DoCoMo 1998年创下的184亿美元IPO纪录。
在行使超额配售选择权后，工行所售17%股份的筹资额将增至219亿美元。此次发行吸引了全球逾5000亿美元的认购资金――而不到两年前，这家银行的坏账比例还高达21%。在进行大规模重组前，工行一直被视为中国最差的大型银行之一，需要用近10年的时间进行（用一位投资银行家的话来说）“减肥瘦身”，除去额外的负担。
对工行来说，瘦身是一个痛苦且代价高昂的过程。工行创建于1984年。当时，中国人民银行(PBoC)拟放弃存贷职能，成为一家单纯的央行。于是组建了工行，接收中国人民银行的分行、员工以及占全国贷款总量约一半的贷款资产组合。
员工人数从56万减至36万
自那以来，工行裁减了大量员工，政府还出资约1630亿美元，用于清理坏账，改善工行的资产负债表。工行现有分行1.8万个，员工36万人，分别低于上世纪90年代末巅峰时期的3.7万和56万。
工行上市前的转型以及其它许多国有银行采取的类似举措，是中国政府上世纪90年代末确定的宏伟战略的结果。这一在国内受到争议的战略，就是要清理大型银行的坏账，迫使其按照国际标准运作。由于国内银行为中国企业提供了90%的外部贷款，薄弱的金融业曾一度危及中国经济的发展。
中国政府迄今取得的成就，甚至连国内的评论员都感到吃惊。中国金融杂志《银行家》(The Banker)主编王松奇表示：“5年前，我会说这是不可能的。”
转折点出现在1999年――中国成立了4家资产管理公司，专门解决四大国有银行的不良贷款。工行被视为仅好于中国农业银行(ABC)，而农行的改革迄今一直步履维艰。在偿债能力更强的其它银行――交通银行(Bank of Communications)、中国建设银行(CCB)和中国银行(BoC)――先行上市之时，工行被迫等待。
邀请战略投资者入股
此次在香港和上海筹资219亿美元前，工行进行了一系列由政府补贴的不良贷款处置、现金注入和资产转移，将该行整体不良贷款比率大幅降至4.1%，使其得以在今年早些时候将战略股份出售给高盛(Goldman Sachs)（在工行董事会有一个席位）、安联保险(Allianz)、美国运通(American Express)和中国全国社会保障基金，筹集资金61亿美元。王松奇在解释引进外国投资者的根本原因时表示：“目的在于利用外部压力，推动内部改革。”
为了改革银行，中国政府还对其庞大的国有企业客户进行了改革，关闭了许多国有企业，努力迫使幸存下来的企业实现盈利运营。工行的不良贷款，主要源自支持地方国有企业的政府指令――银行高管坚称，他们现在再也不这样做了。
有迹象显示，工行和其它大型银行改变了贷款政策。从2001年至今年第二季度，随着规模较小的地方银行进入市场，大型银行占中国总资产的份额已从68%降至53%。王松奇表示：“地方政府如今对大型银行的需求降低了，因为它们有了自己的金融机构。”
压低储蓄利率确保银行厚利
在银行复苏过程中，另一个很少为人所提及的关键因素，是中国利率政策给予的帮助。中国央行在解除贷款利率管制的同时，将储蓄利率维持在低水平，确保了银行的厚利。华盛顿国际经济研究所(Institute for International Economics)的尼古拉斯?拉迪(Nicholas Lardy)表示：“以银行业的国际标准来衡量，它们一直是在靠利差获利――在这方面，它们是中国央行利率政策的受益人。”
然而，中国的银行也是政府政策的受害人，它们被迫买进数十亿美元的央行票据，以维持人民币的稳定。
有意持有工行股份的投资者，希望该行不再需要纾困。但是，虽然工行现在有一套闪亮的新账簿，但它的管理团队还是原来那些人。
新银行，旧管理班子
“在准备IPO时，他们拿掉了不良贷款，却没有请走不良放贷者，”香港独立投资者、股东维权人士大卫?韦布(David Webb)表示。“更多（不良贷款的）堆积和中国银行业IPO后首次危机的出现只是个时间问题，可能会在大约5年后。”
以董事长姜建清为首的4位工行执行董事，均已在工行或中国华融资产管理公司任职19到22年。华融是专门处理工行不良贷款的资产管理公司。在工行招股书中突出提到的另外7位高级经理人中，有5位已经在工行工作13到21年。在上世纪80年代末和90年代工行不良贷款率迅速提高的时期，他们都管理过工行的大型地区分行或部门。
工行现在必须证明怀疑论者是错误的，确保历史不会在该行新批的贷款上重演。今年5月，工行的审计机构安永(Ernst & Young)恰恰突显了这一风险。当时，安永的不良贷款处理部门发布的报告显示，四大国有银行的不良贷款可能高达3580亿美元――几乎是中国政府1330亿美元官方估计数字的3倍，另外，中国银行系统的其它金融机构还有6000亿美元不良贷款。这份报告招致了中国央行的强烈谴责。安永很快撤回了报告，称其“缺乏事实依据”。
先进的内控机制
据工行负责信贷管理的执行董事兼副行长牛锡明透露，截至今年6月底，工行95.2%的资产组合由1999年1月1日以来发放的贷款组成。他表示，这些贷款的不良贷款率仅为1.86%。“这个水平是非常真实的……我们在将近8年的时间里，又重新塑造了一个工商银行，这个工商银行同1998年以前的老银行是不同的。”
工行也可以声称自己的内部信贷控制优于同行，使其可以防止欺诈行为。牛锡明表示，工行建立了计算机系统来管理贷款，可以向下追究到分行一层，令工行总行可以“有效控制整个信贷过程”。贷款只有在得到总部的确认后才能发放。
然而，《银行家》杂志主编王松奇认为，工行结构和正式贷款政策的模范改革，并没有渗透到所有分行。他担心，即使有了计算机，地方一级的办事方式还是照旧。“从根本上说，并没有变化，”他说道。“股改对上层有影响，但在支行这一级，它们仍在按老做法办事。”
只要中国经济能继续迅猛增长，这也许并不重要。自2003年以来，工行总资产已增长55%，达到7.055万亿元人民币（合8930亿美元），仅2005年一年就激增27%。而且，有交行、建行和中行过去18个月上市创下的鼓舞人心的先例，工行及其创纪录的IPO始终一帆风顺。拉迪认为：“对这些银行来说，环境并不非常具有挑战性。”
关键问题在于，如果气候发生变化，会发生什么。和同类银行一样，工行仍需证明，自己在暴风雨中也可以是一家好银行。
