Pension Fund Treads Warily Into Chinese Stock Markets
It could be a symbol of how far China's stock markets have come, and how far they have to go.
Hoping to build a secure pension system, China is pumping part of a new $15.7 billion investment fund into its notoriously risky stock markets. China quietly began this dramatic experiment two months ago, in another break with its central-planning past.
Out went the idea of trying to cover China's aging urban workers solely with the government's dilapidated pension system. In came a model based on the California Public Employees' Retirement System, or Calpers, the largest pension fund in the U.S., to reap returns from the market. Six Chinese fund-management companies were tapped to invest in stocks and bonds to supplement pension revenue.
China's stock market hasn't been cooperating. Poor-quality companies and continued poor returns from the market -- the Shenzhen and Shanghai indexes recently hit eight-month lows -- appear to have deterred investment managers. So far, the fund has invested just 5% in equities, though the government's goal is to allocate as much as 40% to the stock market. Bonds and short-term cash notes now make up the bulk of the investments, according to an official with China's government-run National Council for Social Security.
The fund will have a difficult time finding worthy stocks where it can park the rest of its money. It's a problem shared by foreign banks, as they wade into China's immature markets with new licenses that permit them to trade Chinese-currency-denominated equities. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and UBS are also hunting for good stock picks. And several of the funds appear to be using the license for little more than a cautious testing of the waters.
Early estimates of returns for the pension fund haven't been encouraging. Though the fund doesn't disclose details of investments, China's state-run Economic Daily recently estimated the fund had lost 1.5 million yuan ($181,000) in the stock market during its first two months of operation. In another sign of caution, fund officials say they have asked China's top leaders to permit investment overseas, such as in the U.S., so they can diversify away from their home market. "We want to be very careful about the safety of the fund," said the official.
The pension-fund official also notes that investment managers are patient, and the long-term plan is to build positions gradually as market conditions improve. Indeed, in recent years China's regulators have taken strong steps to stamp out some excessive speculation and lift levels of corporate transparency.
The leaders at China's pension fund are well aware of the market's problems. China's straight-talking former minister of finance, Xiang Huaicheng, now runs the National Council for Social Security. His lieutenant, Gao Xiqing, is the former vice chairman of China's market watchdog and one of the earliest backers of the two Chinese stock exchanges, launched in the early 1990s.
Yet some of the market's biggest problems are left over from its early days. China's stock market remains deceptively shallow. Despite a purported $500 billion in capitalization, China's stock markets publicly trade a third that amount, with the rest tied up in nontradable stakes held by official entities. That has allowed the Chinese government to experiment with stock markets but retain control over its companies. Today, that arrangement is limiting the sway of big investors in companies' operations and stunting change.
Adding to the investment barriers, the companies themselves are relatively small. Of China's 1,250 listed companies, about 85% have market capitalizations under $200 million, according to Chen Zhe, an analyst with Citic Securities.
The entry of big institutional investors, domestic and foreign, into the market could end up forcing the government to take some unpopular steps, such as unloading some of its equity in publicly traded companies. While a big selloff of government-owned shares into the market could pummel share prices, it could also lure in big funds and lighten the government's own presence, according to Carl Walter , a managing director of J.P. Morgan in Beijing and co-author of a new book on China's stock markets, "Privatizing China." "What's important is that they have to get the market going again," he says.
中国社保基金谨慎涉足股市
为建立一套安全的退休金体系，中国将把总额157亿美元的新投资基金中一部分的资金投入股市。这一事件，将成为中国股市已经发展到何种程度，以及它还有多远的路要走的重大标志。
中国再次摆脱了过去的中央计划模式，在两个月之前悄然开始这项重大试验。
这项计划的意图在于尝试通过政府建立的社会保障系统这个唯一途径来为城市退休人员提供保障。其操作模式以美国最大的退休基金加州公务员退休基金(California Public Employees' Retirement System)为基础，目的是从市场获取回报。中国6家基金管理公司已被选中负责将这些资金投入股票和债券市场，为社保基金补充资金。
可是中国股市却一直不予合作。
上市公司质量差，股市回报状况持续下降，如上海和深圳交易所的主要指数最近跌至8个月以来的最低水平，这些因素似乎使得投资经理们望而却步。因而，尽管政府的目标是将这项基金中多达40%的资金投入股市，但迄今为止投入股市的比例仅有5%。据全国社会保障基金理事会(National Council for Social Security)的一位官员称，目前大部分投资是债券和短期票据。
为社保基金中其余资金寻找有价值的股票进行投资将会很难。外资银行在获准投资以人民币计价的股票后进入中国不成熟的市场时也面临同样问题。高盛(Goldman Sachs)、摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)、花旗集团(Citigroup)和瑞士央行(UBS)也都在搜寻好的股票。其中好几家似乎只是通过经营牌照谨慎地在该市场进行投资试验而已。
对社保基金投资回报的初步预期未能令人鼓舞。尽管该基金未披露投资细节，但官方的《经济日报》最近估计，在头两个月操作中，该基金就已损失了人民币150万元（合18.1万美元）。
基金官员称，为谨慎起见，他们还申请上级批准向海外、比如美国市场进行投资，从而能够将投资在国内市场的基础上实现分散化。这位官员表示想对基金的安全持非常谨慎的态度。
这位官员还指出，投资经理们富有耐心，他们的长线投资计划是随著市场状况的好转逐渐建立头寸。事实上，近年来中国政府为打击一些过分投机活动及提高公司透明度，已经采取了强有力的措施。
社保基金的官员们深知股市中的问题。前财政部长项怀诚目前担任社保基金理事会(National Council for Social Security)理事长。证监会前副主席高西庆任副理事长，他是90年代初推出的两个股票交易所的最先倡导者之一。
然而股市的各大问题大多是初期就已遗留下来的。中国股市基础依然非常薄弱，虽然市值号称5,000亿美元，但实际上公开交易的部分仅占该数字的三分之一，其余部分都是由法人持有的非流通股。这使得政府得以在对股市进行试验的同时保持对公司的控制权。而如今，此项安排正在对大型投资者在公司经营方面的影响力形成限制，并对变革构成阻碍。
除这些投资壁垒外，上市公司自身的规模也相对较小。中信证券(Citic Securities)分析师陈哲(Chen Zhe, 音译)称，中国1,250家上市公司中，市值在2亿美元以下的约占85%。
国内外大型机构投资者的进入最终可能迫使政府采取一些令人不快的措施，比如抛售上市公司的部分股票。摩根大通(J.P. Morgan)驻北京的负责人霍康(Carl Walter)称，虽然如此大规模的抛售可能导致股价暴跌，但也可能吸引大型基金的进入，并减少政府对市场的直接影响。他称，重要的是他们必须让市场重新启动。
