While
the western world (and much of the eastern) has been preoccupied with
predicting the consequences of Trump's accelerating global trade/tech
war and whether the Fed will launch QE before or after it sends rates
back to zero, Beijing has quietly had its hands full with avoiding a
bank run in the aftermath of Baoshang Bank's failure and keeping the
interbank market - which has been on the verge of freezing - alive.
Unfortunately for the PBOC, Beijing was racing against time to
prevent a widespread panic after it opened the Pandora's box when it
seized Baoshang Bank, the first official bank failure in an odd replay
of what happened with Bear Stearns back in 2008, when JPMorgan was
gifted the historic bank for pennies on the dollar.
As a reminder, back in May, shortly after the shocking failure of
China's Baoshang Bank (BSB), and its subsequent seizure by the
government - the first takeover of a commercial bank since the Hainan
Development Bank 20 years ago - the PBOC panicked and injected a
whopping 250 billion yuan via an open-market operation, the largest
since January. Alas, as we said at the time, it was too little to late,
and with the interbank market roiling, with Negotiable Certificates of
Deposit (NCD) and repo rates soaring (in some occult cases as high as 1000%) we said that it's just a matter of time before another major Chinese bank collapses.
5月末のことを思い起こすと、中国のBaoshang Bank (BSB)破綻とその後の国有化後ーーこれは20年前の海南開発銀行以来初めての商業銀行国有化だったーーPBOCはパニクってなんと250B人民元を公開市場操作で金融システムに注入した、今年最大の量だった。なんということか、当時ZeroHedgeが書いたが、これは too little to lateであり、インターバンク市場を揺るがした(金利がオカルト的な数字1000%にもなった)ZeroHedgeはこれをみて次の中国での大型銀行倒産は時間の問題だと書いた。
And, in order to present the list of the most likely candidates, will
picked those names that - just like Baoshang - had delayed publishing
their latest annual reports, the biggest red flag suggesting an upcoming
solvency "event." The list is below.
We were right, because not even two months later, the second biggest bank on the list, Bank of Jinzhou has crawled in Baoshang's foosteps and is about to be seized by the government. ZeroHedgeは正しかった、というのもその二月後に、この表の二番手の銀行、錦州銀行がBaoshangの後をたどっている、まさに国有化されんとしている。
According to Reuters and Bloomberg,
Bank of Jinzhou recently met financial institutions in its home
Liaoning province to discuss measures to deal with liquidity problems,
and in a parallel bailout to that of Baoshang, the bank was in talks to
"introduce strategic investors" after a report that China’s financial
regulators are seeking to resolve its liquidity problems sent its
dollar-denominated debt plunging.
Officials including those from the People’s Bank of China and China
Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission recently held a meeting with
financial institutions in Bank of Jinzhou’s home province of Liaoning
to discuss measures to resolve the lender’s liquidity issues, Reuters
reported Wednesday.
In response to market fears the bank issued a statement on Thursday
that "currently, Bank of Jinzhou’s business operations are normal
overall,” which however did not refer to its liquidity situation. "Recently,
the bank’s board of directors and some major shareholders have been in
talks with several institutions that wish to and have the ability to to
become strategic investors" adding that talks have been “going smoothly.”
By strategist investors it of course meant banks, backstopped by the
government, who would "absorb" the bank, effectively nationalizing it a
la what happened with Baoshang. The only question is whether
stakeholders would also be impaired.
As we reported in June, Jinzhou’s Hong Kong-listed shares have been
suspended since April after it failed to disclose its 2018 financial
statements; adding to its woes, its auditors Ernst & Young Hua Ming LLP and Ernst & Young resigned. As the bank - which first got in hot water in 2015 over its exposure to the scandal-ridden Hanergy Group -
wrote in a filing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, E&Y was first
appointed as the auditors of the Bank at the last annual general meeting
of the Bank held on 29 May 2018 to hold office until the conclusion of
the next annual general meeting of the Bank. That never happened,
because on 31 May 2019, out of the blue, the board and its audit
committee received a letter from EY tendering their resignations as the
auditors of the Bank with immediate effect.
6月にZeroHedgeが報告したように、錦州銀行の香港上場株は2018年決算開示をしていないために4月以降売買停止状態だ;さらに残念なことに、監査法人、 Ernst & Young Hua Ming LLP and Ernst & Young、は監査を辞退した。当行によると、ーー最初は2015年にスキャンダルまみれのHanergy Groupに巻き込まれて煮え湯を飲んだーー香港証券取引所の記録によると、E&Yは当行の監査法人として2018年5月29日に指名されその後一年間の監査を任された。しかしこれはかなわなかった、というのも2019年5月31日、突然、取締役会と監査委員会はEYから直ちに監査法人を辞退するという通告を受け取った。
The reason for the resignation: the bank refused to provide
E&Y with documents to confirm the bank's clients were able to
service loans, amid indications that the use of proceeds of certain
loans granted by the Bank to its institutional customers were not
consistent with the purpose stated in their loan documents.
As a result, "after numerous discussions and as at the date of this
announcement, no consensus was reached between the Bank and EY on the
Outstanding Matters and the proposed timetable for the completion of
audit." At this time, the bank also requested the trading in the H
shares (which was frozen on April 1) on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong
Limited to be suspended until the publication of the 2018 Annual
Results, which will likely never come.
There is another reason why this particular failure is notable: Bank
of Jinzhou is the second-most reliant on interbank financing,
particularly non-bank financial institutions’ deposits, among more than
200 local banks, according to UBS analyst Jason Bedford said when
reached by phone on Thursday.
Which explains its failure: just last month we reported that China's interbank market, especially for smaller banks, had effectively frozen.
It was therefore only a matter of time before other banks reliant on it
for funding threw in the towel, as Jinzhou has now done. To wit,
Jinzhou's Its dollar-denominated loss-absorbing debt instruments, known
as AT1 bonds, plunged near all time low...
... while the bank’s seven negotiable certificates of deposits -
which would be taken over by another, bigger bank when (if) the bank is
seized and bailed out, were indicated at yields ranging from 3%-5.5% on
Thursday, higher than valuations of 2.8%-3.45%.
Incidentally, back in early June when first reporting on the
resignation of the bank's auditors, we said that "the real question
facing Beijing now is how quickly will Bank of Jinzhou collapse,
how will Beijing and the PBOC react, and what whether the other banks
on the list above now suffer a raging bank run, on which will certainly not be confined just to China's small and medium banks."
The answer: less than 2 months.
Unfortunately for China, it won't stop there. As a reminder, China’s
smaller lenders have been under growing scrutiny since Baoshang Bank's
failure and takeover which led to a sharp repricing of risk for much of
China’s banking system which had long operated under an assumption that
policy makers would support firms in trouble.
"We expect the regulators to step up their support if more financial
institutions run into liquidity issues,” said Becky Liu, head of China
macro strategy at Standard Chartered Plc, who declined to comment
directly about Bank of Jinzhou. "Over time, the cost of funding between
the stronger and weaker financial institutions will see further
divergence."
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