Moody’s Issues Stern Warning On China’s Pyramid Bank Recapitalization Scheme; Has CIC Entered A Funding Crisis?
by ilene - August 30th, 2010 10:58 am
Moody’s Issues Stern Warning On China’s Pyramid Bank Recapitalization Scheme; Has CIC Entered A Funding Crisis?
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
Moody’s is out with a surprisingly frank appraisal of the Chinese banking system’s precarious capitalization trend, by looking at the recent RMB 54 billion capital raise in the interbank market by the domestic arm of the Chinese Sovereign Wealth fund (CIC), which was "the first part of an RMB 187.5 billion overall fund-raising program mainly to provide additional capital to the three largest state-owned banks, a policy lender, and a policy insurance company."
As Moody’s oh so correctly concludes: "Recapitalizing banks with bond proceeds from banks is credit negative because it increases the effective leverage of the banking system. The transaction’s impact on the system is limited in this case because the increased leverage is not significant, but it would be problematic if effective leverage continues to increase and China’s economic growth stalls." Moody’s stops one step short of calling this transaction what it is: using debt purchased by other banks to recapitalize deteriorating loans on the banks’ asset side: "the increases in assets and equity are artificial and without real economic substance: the increase in reported equity on banks’ balance sheets enables the banks to lend more and effectively leverages up the system. Assuming banks fully deploy the capital raised, the resulting increase in the risk-weighted assets would be RMB 187.5 billion divided by 11.5% (the minimum capital requirement)." What is also not said, but is glaringly obvious, is that the Chinese sovereign wealth fund is likely in a major need of recapitalization, courtesy of its extensive US financial sector equity holdings.
From Moody’s:
Last week, Huijin, the domestic arm of China Investment Corp (China’s sovereign wealth fund), raised RMB 54 billion in the domestic interbank market. It was the first part of an RMB 187.5 billion overall fund-raising program mainly to provide additional capital to the three largest state-owned banks, a policy lender, and a policy insurance company.Recapitalizing banks with bond proceeds from banks is credit negative because it increases the effective leverage of the banking system. The transaction’s impact on the system is limited in this case because the increased leverage is not significant, but it would be problematic if effective leverage continues to increase and China’s economic growth stalls. Even without an official breakdown of the bonds’
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
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