中國銀行股重獲基金經理青睞

Emerging market fund managers have started buying back into China’s largest banks, despite fears of rising bad loans, off-balance sheet lending to the shadow banking sector and a jump in interbank lending rates to a two-year high.

新興市場基金經理已開始重新買入中國大型銀行股，儘管如下幾點仍令人擔憂：不斷增加的不良貸款、流向銀子銀行部門的表外放貸以及銀行間同業拆放利率升至兩年高位。

Chinese financial stocks have fallen dramatically out of favour since 2011, with the vast majority of emerging market equity funds holding sizeable underweight positions in the sector or shunning it full stop.

自2011年以來，中國金融股急劇失寵，絕大多數新興市場股票基金對中國金融股大幅低配，或者完全空倉。

However, fund managers have turned net buyers of China’s four large state-controlled banks since last summer even as China’s central bank and regulators have sought to drain cash from the banking sector after years of runaway debt growth.

然而，自去年夏季以來，基金經理已成爲中國四大國有銀行的淨買入方，即便中國央行和監管機構同期一直試圖在多年的債務增長失控之後將資金抽離銀行部門。

“The economic cycle has improved and therefore the cash flow generation of corporate China has improved so, at the margin, we can feel more confident about the banks’ asset quality,” said Charlie Awdry, manager of Henderson Global Investors’ China Opportunities fund, who has just ended an 18-month long boycott of Chinese bank stocks.

管理着亨德森全球投資(Henderson Global Investors)旗下遠見中國躍升基金(China Opportunities)的基金經理查理?奧德里(Charlie Awdry)表示：“經濟週期已經改善，因而中國企業產生現金流的能力有所提高，所以，從邊際角度考慮，我們可以對這些銀行的資產質量更有信心。”奧德里剛剛解除了對中國銀行股爲期18個月的買入凍結。

“People have mentally written off the banks as investments. Expectations are at rock bottom, [but] people are going to start to realise that their expectations for the banks are so low, any improvement can be an incremental positive.”

“人們心裏已將銀行股視爲打了水漂的投資。期望值已低到不能再低，（但）人們會開始意識到，他們對這些銀行的期望值已低到任何改善都可以成爲利好的地步。”

JP Smith, a partner at Ecstrat, an investment consultancy, added: “[Chinese banks] were the biggest single underweighting of emerging market funds. If you believe the economy will be fairly stable for the next six months it’s a fairly rational thing to do to up your weighting.”

投資諮詢公司Ecstrat的合夥人J?P?史密斯(JP Smith)補充說：“（中資銀行）是新興市場基金低配幅度最大的資產類別。如果你認爲未來6個月中國經濟將還算穩定，那麼提高配置權重是比較合理的。”

However, the bearish Mr Smith described this as “picking up nickels in front of a steamroller”. “I can understand why people are doing it, but I think they are taking a huge risk,” he added.

然而，看空的史密斯把這形容爲“在壓路機前撿硬幣”。“我能理解人們爲什麼這樣做，但我認爲他們在冒巨大風險，”他補充說。

At the end of March, 42.7 per cent of the 126 emerging market funds, with combined assets of $265bn, monitored by Copley Fund Research held stakes in China Construction Bank, up from a low of 38.2 per cent at the end of June 2016 and partially reversing a long downward trend.

在科普利基金研究(Copley Fund Research)監測的合計資產管理規模達2650億美元的126只新興市場基金中，持倉中國建設銀行(CCB)的基金比重從2016年6月末的低點38.2%上升到了今年3月末的42.7%，部分扭轉了長期的下滑趨勢。

Over the same period, the proportion of funds holding stock in Industrial and Commercial Bank of China rose from 30.1 per cent to 33.1 per cent, those holding Bank of China rose from 22 per cent to 25 per cent and the proportion with positions in Agricultural Bank of China increased from 14.6 per cent to 16.1 per cent, as the first chart shows.

同一時期，持倉中國工商銀行(ICBC)的基金比重從30.1%上升至33.1%，持倉中國銀行(BoC)的基金比重從22%上升至25%，持倉中國農業銀行(ABC)的比重從14.6%上升到16.1%（如圖所示）。

The proportion of funds with an overweight position in each of these state-controlled banks has also risen since June 2016, from 26 per cent to 33.9 per cent at CCB, 18.7 per cent to 22.6 per cent at ICBC, 13.8 per cent to 16.9 per cent at BoC and 10.6 per cent to 12.1 per cent at ABC, as depicted in the second chart.

高配這些國有銀行的基金的比重自2016年6月以來也有所上升——建行從26%升至33.9%，工行從18.7%升至22.6%，中行從13.8%到16.9%，農行從10.6%升至12.1%。

To some extent, the partial recovery in funds’ appetite for large Chinese banks reflects a broader trend, with the average emerging market fund now having a 25.5 per cent allocation to financial stocks, just 1.1 percentage points below the sector’s weight in the MSCI EM index, the smallest underweight since Copley began collating data in 2011.

基金對中國大型銀行股買入意願的部分復甦，在某種程度上反映了一種更廣泛的趨勢：如今，新興市場基金對金融股的平均配置權重爲25.5%，僅比該板塊在MSCI明晟新興市場指數(MSCI EM index)中的比重低1.1個百分點，低配幅度是自科普利自2011年開始編纂數據以來最小的。

In the wake of an inflection point in November 2016, Steven Holden, founder of Copley, believes much of the buying has been driven by a global “reflation” trade off the back of the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency.

科普利創始人史蒂文?霍爾登(Steven Holden)認爲，2016年11月的拐點之後，大部分買入是由基於唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)當選美國總統的全球“通貨再膨脹”交易(“reflation” trade)驅動的。

Henderson’s Mr Awdry lists a range of factors that have led him to buy back into two of China’s big four banks, CCB and BoC, and may well have influenced others.

亨德森全球投資的奧德里列出了一系列促使他重新投資建行和中行的因素，這些因素很可能也影響了其他基金經理。

First, given the preponderance of state-owned enterprises in the Chinese economy, he argues that a key weakness of the country’s corporate sector is that it does not allocate capital well, and therefore “asset quality is poor”.

首先，鑑於國有企業在中國經濟中的優勢地位，他認爲，中國企業部門的一個主要弱點在於資本配置不當，因此，“資產質量較差”。

However, off the back of a directive from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, Mr Awdry says there are signs that SOEs are starting to improve their capital allocation by increasing dividend payouts. He cites a decision by China Shenhua Energy, the country’s largest coal company, in March to pay a special dividend of Rmb49.9bn ($7.2bn) as an example of this trend.

然而，基於中國國有資產監督管理委員會的一條指令，奧德里表示，有跡象表明國有企業正開始通過增加派息來改善資本配置。奧德里援引的反映這一趨勢的例子是，中國最大的煤炭企業中國神華(China Shenhua)今年3月決定派發499億元人民幣（合72億美元）的特別股息。

Given that many SOEs are big borrowers from the state banks, Mr Awdry believes this improved financial discipline will make them better credits, improving the quality of banks’ assets.

鑑於很多國企都是國有銀行的主要借貸人，奧德里認爲，這種財務自律性的提高將讓國企成爲更好的借貸人，從而提高銀行的資產質量。

Second, he cites the low valuations of the four state banks, which currently trade at between 5.3 and 5.8 times consensus estimate of 2017 earnings, well below the 11.9 times of the wider Hong Kong market.

第二，他援引了四大國有銀行較低的估值，目前四大行以2017年共識預測盈利計算的市盈率在5.3倍至5.8倍之間，遠低於整個香港股市11.9倍的水平。

Although Mr Awdry still holds a large position in consumer-orientated stocks such as Tencent, which trades on a multiple of 34.9 times, he argues the valuation gap with the banks has become too extreme.

儘管奧德里仍然重倉持有騰訊(Tencent)等面向消費者的股票，但他認爲這類股票與銀行股之間的估值差距已經太大了。以2017年預測盈利計算，騰訊現在的市盈率爲34.9倍。

He raised some of the money to buy into the banks by cutting his stake in Jiangsu Yuyue Medical Equipment & Supply, a company he says he still likes but one that trades on 40.6 times 2017 earnings.

他通過對江蘇魚躍醫療設備股份有限公司(Jiangsu Yuyue Medical Equipment & Supply)減倉籌措了一些資金，用來購入銀行股。他稱魚躍醫療仍然是他很喜歡的個股，但其以2017年盈利計算的市盈率已經到了40.6倍。

Mr Awdry, who manages just under $1bn in Chinese stocks, also cited the modest pick-up in China’s economic growth rate and signs that the Trump administration is proving more pragmatic than many expected in its relations with China, as factors behind his renewed optimism for the large banks.

奧德里管理的資金有略低於10億美元配置在中國股票上。他還把如下兩點引爲促使他對大型銀行重拾樂觀的因素：中國經濟增長率小幅提振，以及有跡象顯示特朗普政府對美中關係的態度比許多人預期的更務實。

However, he admitted that it was impossible to get an accurate picture of the level of off-balance sheet lending by Chinese banks, arguing that investing in the country, which he has done since 2006, necessarily requires “dealing with uncertainty”.

然而，他承認想要得到中國銀行業表外放貸水平的準確信息是不可能的，他認爲“與不確定性打交道”是投資於中國所無法避免的。自2006年以來，他一直在投資於中國。

“It may be that some investors will never feel comfortable with Chinese financial statements. You can always want more information,” he says.

他稱：“有些投資者可能始終無法適應中國的財務報表。你可能總會想得到更多信息。”

Mr Awdry also remains wary of the second-tier city commercial and rural banks, particularly given rising interbank lending rates that he fears will squeeze net interest margins for the second-tier banks that rely on funding from this market, even as they increase margins for the deposit-heavy big four that are net lenders via the interbank market.

此外，奧德里仍然對城商行和農商行這些二線銀行保持着警惕，特別是在銀行間同業拆放利率不斷上漲的情況下——他擔心不斷上漲的銀行間同業拆放利率會擠壓那些依靠該市場籌措資金的二線銀行的淨息差。與此同時，不斷上漲的銀行間同業拆放利率增加四大行的淨息差——擁有鉅額居民存款的四大行是銀行間同業市場的淨出借方。

Copley’s data suggest this is a widespread view, with fewer than 10 per cent of the funds it tracks holding second-tier banks such as China Minsheng Bank, and even these stakes being of “almost neglible size”, says Mr Holden.

霍爾登稱，科普利基金研究的數據表明這是一種普遍觀點，在該機構追蹤的基金中，持倉中國民生銀行等二線銀行的比例不足10%，而且持倉規模“幾乎可忽略不計”。

However, Mr Smith believes even the big four banks carry significant risk, with the disintermediation of China’s financial sector making it hard to get a handle on the size of the contingent liabilities that stem from their distribution of so-called wealth management products, notoriously risky high-yield products that are issued by banks but often kept off balance sheets to elude capital regulations.

然而，史密斯認爲，即便是四大行也承載着重大風險——中國金融業的非居間化(disintermediation)導致人們很難摸清或有負債的規模，這種負債源自四大行銷售所謂的理財產品，這些產品都是出了名的高風險高收益產品，雖然由銀行發行，但爲了規避資本金監管要求，往往不被放入銀行的資產負債表。

These WMPs, Rmb29tn ($4.2tn) of which are currently in issuance, equivalent to 40 per cent of GDP, are seen as prime drivers of China’s shadow finance chicanery.

這些理財產品被視爲中國影子金融把戲的主要推動因素。目前發行中的理財產品總值爲29萬億元人民幣（合4.2萬億美元），相當於中國國內生產總值(GDP)的40%。