邦吉:中國影子銀行扭曲大豆交易
The emergence of “financial players” from China has distorted the soyabean trade in the world’s biggest importer of the oilseed, helping depress results at trading house Bunge, the company said.
國際農產品交易巨頭邦吉(Bunge)表示，中國的大豆交易因“金融玩家”而被扭曲，導致這家交易商業績受到影響。中國是全球最大的大豆進口國。The comment underlines the extent to which the rise of a Chinese shadow banking business that uses bulk material to back loans has upended commodities markets. The trading world has been transfixed over a scandal involving loans made against piles of metal in the dockside warehouses of Qingdao.
邦吉的言論凸顯出中國影子銀行的壯大對大宗商品市場產生的顛覆性影響。中國影子銀行業正日益使用大宗商品做抵押換取貸款。此前青島港的一宗醜聞曾震驚全球大宗商品交易界，其中青島碼頭倉庫裏的成堆金屬就在被抵押後換取貸款。
Agricultural market participants have also been affected. Bunge said China-based “financial players” had obtained financing at favourable rates to buy soyabeans because they were seen as “strategic commodities,” then cashed in the stocks and re-lent at higher rates to retail borrowers.
農產品交易商也受到了這一趨勢的影響。邦吉表示，由於大豆被視爲“戰略物資”，中國的“金融玩家”能以十分有利的利率，以購買大豆的名義獲取融資，接着他們會把這些資金在股市兌現，並以更高利率再次出借給散戶借款人。
“The way they act in markets is not always logical,” Soren Schroder, chief executive, said in an interview. “They’re in it for the financial arbitrage and not for the fundamental reason” of processing a commodity.
邦吉首席執行官索倫•施羅德(Soren Schroder)在一次訪談時表示：“他們在市場中的行爲並不始終合乎邏輯。”他補充說，“他們進入這個市場的目的是金融套利，而不是出於（交易大宗商品的）基本理性”。New York-listed Bunge’s shares fell 10.8 per cent to $81.33 on Thursday after it reported adjusted 2014 net profit of $4.19 per share, down from $4.78 a year before. China loomed among the causes of the disappointing result.
週四，在紐約上市的邦吉稱，2014年調整後的淨利潤爲每股4.19美元，低於一年前的4.78美元。中國是導致業績令人失望的原因之一。Bunge operates four plants in China that crush soyabeans into meal for livestock feed and vegetable oil. The crushing industry is battling overcapacity relative to demand. As of late last year, half the country’s capacity was unused, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s attaché in Beijing.
邦吉在華運營四家工廠，業務是將大豆壓成家畜飼料，並榨取植物油。壓榨行業正面對產能過剩困境。根美國農業部(Department of Agriculture)駐北京專員表示，到去年底，中國這一產業閒置了一半產能。Drawing from a sprawling network of silos and ports in North and South America, Bunge also supplies about 5-10 per cent of the 70m tonnes of Chinese soyabean imports annually. Three in five tonnes of internationally traded soyabeans land in China.
邦吉通過遍佈南北美的筒倉和港口網絡收購大豆，供應了中國每年7000萬大豆進口量的5%到10%。目前國際上交易的大豆中，每5噸中就有3噸流向中國。Mr Schroder acknowledged the company’s traders had “misread the underlying demand” for soyabeans inside China as it booked a $30m loss on imports shipped to the country in late 2014. “It does feel a little wobbly,” he said of China’s consumption picture.
施羅德承認，邦吉在2014年下半年向中國出口大豆的交易中錄得3000萬美元虧損，因爲其交易員“誤讀了（中國國內對大豆的）潛在需求”。在談到中國的消費狀況時，他說：“感覺波動性確實有些大。”However, he said volumes of soyabeans handled by the financial players had been “significant enough to distort the market”. He added that this type of trading activity had abated over the course of 2014 as Beijing imposed new limitations.
他表示，那些金融玩家經手的大豆數量“大到了足以扭曲市場的地步”。他補充說，隨着中國政府引入新的限制措施，這種交易活動已經有所減少。The impact of Chinese shadow banking on commodities was also illustrated last year in nickel, an ingredient in stainless steel.
去年，中國影子銀行業對大宗商品的影響也曾表現在鎳的交易上。鎳是生產不鏽鋼的原料之一。The metals for loans scandal at the port of Qingdao triggered an exit of nickel that had been ‘financed’ in China warehouses for safer London Metal Exchange storage in Asia.
青島港發生的用金屬換貸款醜聞，曾導致在中國倉庫內“用於融資的”金屬鎳外流，流向更安全的倫敦金屬交易所(LME)亞洲庫房。As the metal poured out of China, the price of nickel fell sharply as the extent of China’s hidden stocks became clear.
結果，隨着中國隱形庫存的暴露，鎳的價格曾急劇下跌。
