全球银行需警惕中国企业海外收购热潮

When China ordered the country’s banks last Thursday to check the “systemic risk” posed by some of their acquisitive “large enterprises” (conglomerate HNA Group, insurer Anbang, consumer group Fosun and property developer Dalian Wanda), some listed companies connected to them plunged in value.

上周四，当中国监管部门要求各银行排查部分热衷于收购的“大企业”（综合企业海航集团(HNA Group)、保险商安邦(Anbang)、消费品集团复星(Fosun)以及房地产开发商大连万达(Dalian Wanda)）构成的“系统性风险”时，一些与之相关的上市企业的股价大幅下跌。

You might have expected Chinese bank stocks to tumble, too. It was, after all, the banking regulator that blew the whistle, and ordered the lenders to examine exposures to the groups whose big foreign acquisitions they have backed. Yet the share prices of China’s big banks actually rose on Thursday after the regulator’s intervention.

你可能会认为中国的银行股也会下跌。毕竟，是银行监管部门鸣哨，并要求银行排查对那些得到了银行支持完成大笔海外收购交易的集团的风险敞口。不过，在监管部门出手干预后，实际上中国大型银行的股价在周四上涨了。

There may be valid reasons for that. Regulators’ concerns seem to be focused less on the banks’ balance sheets and more on their role facilitating contentious fundraisings from private investors, including through life assurance. The regulator’s probe may also be seen as part of the authorities’ efforts to curb capital outflows — and hence a political tactic rather than a concern about bank stability.

这种情况的出现可能是有原因的。监管部门的担忧似乎没那么集中在银行的资产负债表上，而更侧重于它们为从私人投资者进行有争议的融资（包括通过人寿保险）提供便利的作用。此次调查可能也被视为政府遏制资本外流的努力的一部分——因此此举更像是政治策略，而不是担心银行的稳定性。

But that does not mean the breakneck overseas expansion undertaken by groups such as HNA and Anbang is low risk. There are sketchy signs that western banks may have more to worry about than their Chinese peers. A combination of deal data and anecdotal evidence suggests that Deutsche Bank, UBS and JPMorgan are among the global banks with exposure to the most aggressively expansionist Chinese groups.

但这并不意味着海航和安邦等企业在海外飞速扩张的风险低。已经有粗略的迹象显示，西方银行可能比中国的银行更需要担忧。交易数据加上坊间证据表明，德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)、瑞银(UBS)和摩根大通(JPMorgan)均处于对中国最具扩张野心的集团存在风险敞口的全球银行之列。

The exposure takes two forms. First is the investment by the Chinese groups in western banks and financial institutions. Take HNA. The Chinese company, which began life as a regional airline, has spent $40bn-plus on more than 100 deals over the past 30 months. It shot to prominence when it acquired a 25 per cent stake in Hilton hotels. More recently it has moved into financial sector assets. In May it bought New Zealand’s biggest finance company, UDC. Only a few months earlier it struck what may be its boldest — and most systemically significant — deal of all, buying a near-10 per cent stake in Deutsche, Germany’s biggest bank.

风险敞口有两种形式。第一种是中国企业对西方银行和金融机构的投资。以海航为例。这家中国企业最开始是一家地区性航空公司，它在过去30个月里斥资400多亿美元完成了超过100项交易。该集团因收购希尔顿酒店(Hilton) 25%的股份而一举成名。最近海航开始涉足金融行业资产。5月，它收购了新西兰最大的金融公司UDC。仅仅数月前，海航刚敲定了可能是其最大胆——也最具有系统重要性——的交易，即收购德国最大的银行德意志银行接近10%的股份。

The Chinese group does not appear to own the stake. Under the terms of a complicated “collar” and “total return swap”, the arrangement gives the financier of the deal, UBS, control when the stock falls below a certain level. Still, HNA basically has a dominant position in the shareholder register. It is a nasty twist on the concept of the anchor investor — something companies often like to have as a reassuring buttress. HNA is anything but that for Deutsche. Bizarrely, the bank’s chief executive John Cryan, has never met his biggest shareholder. And given the nature of the financing deal (and HNA’s string of debt-fuelled acquisitions), the stake looks like a large share overhang that could be dumped at any minute.

海航似乎并不拥有股份。在复杂的“领口策略”和“总收益互换”条款的规定下，当股价下跌至一定水平后，该安排将把控股权交给该交易的融资方，也就是瑞银。不过，海航在股东名册上基本占据首要位置。这是对锚定投资者（企业往往希望拥有锚定投资者作为可靠支持）概念的严重扭曲。海航对于德意志银行来说绝不是锚定投资者。怪异的是，该银行的首席执行官约翰?克赖恩(John Cryan)从未见过他最大的股东。鉴于该笔融资交易（以及海航通过举债完成的一系列交易）的本质，这笔股份看起来就像是随时可能被抛售的大笔股票。

Financiers say other banks narrowly escaped a similar plight. Senior figures at HNA and Anbang have made informal approaches to Italy’s UniCredit and UK-listed Standard Chartered in recent months, they say.

金融人士表示，还有其他银行险些落入了类似境地。他们称，近几个月海航和安邦的高层人物以非正式的方式接触了意大利联合信贷银行(UniCredit)和在英国上市的渣打银行(Standard Chartered)。

A second risk for global banks stems from the credit risk attached to the Chinese groups’ expansion. Such exposures are impossible to chart with accuracy. Aside from UBS’s involvement in the Deutsche transaction, the Swiss bank has done several other Chinese acquisition financing deals, as have dozens of others. Bankers say JPMorgan has taken a lead in backing HNA in particular.

全球银行面临的第二大风险来自中国企业扩张带来的信用风险。此类风险敞口不可能用图表准确表现出来。除了参与收购德银股份的交易，瑞银还完成了另外几笔中国企业收购的融资交易，其他数十家银行也是如此。银行人士表示，摩根大通尤其在支持海航方面一马当先。

Syndicated debt deals, which see originating banks disseminate loans to others, appear rare in Chinese acquisition finance. According to Dealogic, there have been only 32 syndicated loan deals relating to HNA, Anbang and Fosun in the past five years, despite hundreds of debt-backed acquisitions by the groups. That suggests much of the financing remains on banks’ balance sheets. One senior banker defends the risk, saying the loans are backed by collateral, typically the stock whose purchase the loan financed and that groups in question seem, for now, to have the support of the Chinese state. Some loans have already shown signs of stress. Swissport, acquired by HNA in 2015, recently breached debt covenants.

在中国企业的收购融资中，银团贷款——牵头行向银团内的其他银行分销贷款——似乎很少见。Dealogic的数据显示，过去5年，尽管海航、安邦和复星进行了数百笔债务支撑的收购，但与这些集团相关的银团贷款交易只有32笔。这表明，大部分贷款仍在银行的资产负债表上。一位为此类风险辩护的资深银行家称，这些贷款由抵押品担保，抵押品通常是贷款融资所支持收购的股份，而且目前来看，受质疑的这些集团似乎得到了中国政府的支持。部分贷款已经显示出了承压的迹象。2015年被海航收购的瑞士空港(Swissport)最近出现了债务违约。

The moral here is that Chinese companies and their financing are no longer insular. MSCI’s recent inclusion of Chinese stocks in global indices was a reminder of that. The world’s banks and their investors should take heed.

这意味着，中国企业及其融资不再只关乎中国。MSCI明晟最近将中国A股纳入其全球指数是对此的一个提醒。全球银行及其投资者应提高警惕。