Improve the quality and efficiency of financial services for the private economy——
Increase confidence for private enterprises to expand financing channels
Our reporter Zhu Huichun Peng Jiang
The private economy plays an important role in stabilizing growth, stabilizing employment, adjusting structure and promoting innovation.
However, currently affected by multiple factors at home and abroad, the scope and extent of the difficulties and challenges faced by private enterprises have further deepened. It is particularly urgent to expand financing channels for private enterprises and solve the cash flow problems faced by production and operation.
Strong support for private enterprises to issue bonds
On March 27, the China Securities Regulatory Commission stated that it plans to introduce seven major policies and measures in the near future, including the introduction of technological innovation corporate bonds, optimization of financing service mechanisms, and marketization of credit enhancement, further expanding private enterprise bond financing channels and enhancing services for the private economy. Development quality.
On March 28, the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (“NAFMII”) issued the “Notice on Further Improving Self-discipline Management Services to Support Epidemic Prevention and Control and Economic and Social Development Work”, proposing to continue to do a good job in private enterprises in issuing bonds. Financing Services.
Industry insiders said that the focus of the policy is mainly on the current pain points of private enterprise debt that are difficult to issue.
In recent years, the scale of private enterprises issuing bonds has dropped significantly.
"It is undeniable that some private enterprises are relatively weak in anti-risk capabilities and other aspects, and are relatively weak in the financial market. The availability of financing is poor, and the financing cost is also high." Market sources told reporters that the data shows that in 2021, , private enterprises issued a total of 381 credit bonds, the issuance amount was 317.8 billion yuan, the issuance scale decreased by 34% year-on-year, and the net financing amount was -332.9 billion yuan, an increase of 90% over the net financing gap in 2020.
In 2021, the average issuance interest rate of AAA, AA+, and AA-rated three-year private enterprise bonds will reach 30BP, 76BP and 177BP, respectively, and the credit spread of state-owned enterprise bonds of the same term.
Lin Jin, director of credit strategy of Pengyang Fund, said in an interview with a reporter from Economic Daily that after experiencing two concentrated risk events of private enterprise industrial debt default in 2018 and private enterprise real estate debt default since 2021, it has become increasingly difficult for private enterprises to obtain financing in the bond market. .
Some default events have exposed the serious deficiencies of private enterprises in terms of information disclosure quality, enterprise management control, and development strategy planning.
Cases that can be seen in public reports include opaque information, financial fraud, connected transactions, and aggressive investment.
The policy support and assistance for the issuance of bonds by private enterprises this time will help improve investors' confidence in investing in private enterprise bonds.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission has introduced seven specific measures to support the bond financing of private enterprises, and solve the problem of "difficult and expensive financing" of private enterprise bonds from multiple dimensions, such as expanding channels, increasing demand, and preventing risks.
To expand channels is to promote the diversification of bond products, actively explore support tools for alleviating the liquidity pressure of private enterprises, and facilitate repurchase financing mechanisms.
For example, the launch of science and technology bonds will give priority to supporting the financing needs of private enterprises in the field of science and technology innovation.
It is foreseeable that the bond market will play an increasingly prominent role in supporting private enterprises in the field of technological innovation.
To increase demand is to optimize the financing service mechanism, improve financing efficiency, moderately lower the threshold of the bond financing market, and increase support for direct financing of private enterprises.
For example, promoting more high-quality private enterprises that meet the requirements to be included in the list of well-known mature issuers, giving play to the role of market-oriented credit enhancement, encouraging market institutions and policy institutions to provide credit enhancement support for private enterprise bond financing through the creation of credit protection tools, and improving private enterprise financing. Credit enhancement support system, etc.
Of course, the string of risk prevention cannot be loosened for a moment.
In response to the "pain points" exposed by private enterprise bond market financing in the past period of time, the whole-process information disclosure mechanism and default disposal mechanism have been simultaneously improved to boost the market's confidence in private enterprise bonds.
Lin Jin said that one of the most effective policies here is to provide credit enhancement support through professional market institutions.
The introduction of professional credit enhancement agencies, through their in-depth due diligence, will help reduce the problem of information asymmetry and opacity of private enterprise bond issuance.
Secondly, by collecting insurance fees, the risk and income are actually redistributed among investment institutions and credit enhancement institutions.
Bond investment institutions have high trust in professional credit enhancement guarantee institutions. By joining the credit enhancement institutions, funds can flow into private enterprises more quickly and solve urgent problems.
The head of the Haitong Securities Bond Department said, "Encourage securities fund institutions to increase business investment in private enterprises, and include private enterprise bond-related indicators in the classified evaluation of securities companies and special business rankings", which has attracted extensive attention from securities practitioners.
This measure can effectively encourage securities companies to support private enterprises in issuing bonds.
Stock exchanges take on
Recently, a group of companies successfully issued corporate bonds for scientific and technological innovation on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
For example, Xiaomi Communications issued short-term corporate bonds for scientific and technological innovation on the Shanghai Stock Exchange with a coupon rate of 2.9% and low financing costs, which greatly facilitated the financing of scientific and technological research and development; Shanghai Lianhe Investment issued scientific and technological innovation bonds, and part of the raised funds was invested in integrated circuits, satellite industries and A private technology innovation enterprise in the field of high-end digital equipment.
A number of high-quality private enterprises such as Fosun Hi-Tech and Sany Heavy Industry have successfully carried out corporate bond and ABS financing in the Shanghai Stock Exchange market.
The reporter learned that the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange actively implemented the decision-making and deployment spirit of the Party Central Committee, implemented the work requirements of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and promoted private enterprises to carry out bond market financing.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange plans to launch technology innovation bonds, giving priority to supporting private enterprises in high-tech and strategic emerging industries to issue bonds to raise funds.
Judging from the previous pilot experience of dual-innovation bonds and market research experience, it is more mature to launch science and technology bonds in the field of special support for scientific and technological innovation at this stage.
The launch of science and technology bonds is expected to further expand the scope of issuers and help to unblock direct financing channels in the field of technological innovation.
As of the end of 2021, the stock of private enterprise bonds in the whole market was 869.2 billion yuan, of which private enterprise bonds on the Shanghai Stock Exchange accounted for 45%.
In terms of innovative types of bonds, we have successively launched bailout bonds to relieve financing and liquidity difficulties of private enterprises, innovation and entrepreneurship bonds to support the development of small and medium-sized high-tech growth enterprises, and epidemic prevention and control to support the resumption of work and production of private enterprises during the epidemic. It also actively promotes high-quality private enterprises to issue corporate bonds for scientific and technological purposes under the framework of entrepreneurship and innovation bonds.
In terms of asset securitization products, actively support the issuance of asset securitization products based on basic assets such as accounts receivable (supply chain), financial leasing, and small loans.
As of March 25, 2022, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's bond market has supported about 2.6 trillion yuan in financing for private enterprises.
The bond financing scale of private listed companies on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange accounts for two-thirds of the bond financing of private listed companies in Shenzhen.
"The Shenzhen Stock Exchange actively promotes the innovation of fixed income products, guides the flow of funds to key areas, key industries and weak links, and expands financing channels for private enterprises." The person in charge of the relevant departments of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange told reporters.
After the new corporate bond policy reform in 2015, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange has successively launched innovative and entrepreneurial corporate bonds, privately-held convertible bonds for innovative and entrepreneurial companies, etc., directly or indirectly supporting private technology companies to raise about 25 billion yuan.
Shenzhen Stock Exchange vigorously promotes the replicable and large-scale development of intellectual property ABS, realizing financing of nearly 13 billion yuan, realizing full coverage of patents, trademarks and copyrights, and helping to open up the business chain of "financing, trading and operation" in the process of intellectual property creation of private technology enterprises .
In 2018, Shenzhen Stock Exchange launched the pilot credit protection tool business, successively launched the credit protection contract and credit protection certificate business, implemented the bond financing support tool for private enterprises, and cooperated with China Clearing to carry out the credit-protected bond pledged repurchase business at the end of March 2021. Pilot.
Up to now, Shenzhen has reached a total of 77 contract transactions and 9 voucher projects, with a total scale of 4.29 billion yuan, leveraging private enterprises to raise about 20 billion yuan.
Taking multiple measures to support private enterprise financing
According to the reporter's understanding, the current credit bond market presents several major characteristics: in terms of the nature of bond-issuing enterprises, the proportion of central enterprises and state-owned enterprises is increasing, while private enterprises are declining; in terms of industry characteristics, urban investment bonds account for half of the volume, and the rest are mainly concentrated in real estate, In terms of overcapacity and public utilities; in terms of yields, the overall trend is downward, with serious internal differentiation. Central enterprises and large state-owned enterprises are at extremely low levels, while private real estate and urban investment bonds with weak qualifications are at historically high yields.
A few days ago, the NAFMII proposed to improve the efficiency of private enterprise registration and issuance services; optimize the convenience of private enterprise bond registration and issuance, support private enterprises that meet the standards of mature enterprises to carry out unified registration of multiple varieties of debt financing instruments (DFI, TDFI), and apply automatic shelf issuance convenience; further Optimize the lead underwriter syndicate mechanism at the registration and issuance stage of private enterprises; introduce more institutions to participate in support measures such as private enterprise bond underwriting.
However, there is a view that until the risk appetite of market investors for private enterprises is significantly repaired, the beneficiaries of the policy will be more concentrated in the leading private enterprises in the industry with better credit qualifications.
In the future, securities companies and bond investors should also be strongly encouraged to actively participate in the exploration of high-quality private enterprise bond assets, and explore and innovate and improve bond risk management tools, so as to bring "source of living water" to the high-quality and sustainable development of private enterprise bonds.
Substantive improvement of the financing problem of private enterprises is not achieved overnight. It still requires the continuous improvement of the bond market structure, the diversification of the investor structure, the establishment of correct risk awareness and the development of risk hedging tools.
The reporter learned that the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges will launch more innovative products directly to important areas of the real economy in the next step, focusing on supporting qualified private enterprises to issue technology innovation bonds, innovation and start-up corporate bonds, digital economy-themed bonds and other varieties.
The Shenzhen Stock Exchange will encourage private enterprises to give priority to the issuance of public infrastructure REITs, quasi-REITs, intellectual property securitization, CMBS and other asset-based credit-based securitization products, and actively cooperate with the implementation of Shenzhen's "100 billion bond issuance plan for private enterprises" and other local government private enterprise bonds. financing policies, etc.
Industry insiders said that it is necessary to strengthen the linkage between stocks and bonds, and support high-quality private enterprises to take advantage of the opportunity of the comprehensive registration system reform in the capital market to grow and develop.
To broaden the financing channels of private enterprises, it is also necessary to make use of the joint efforts of all parties to play a "combination punch", pay equal attention to indirect financing and direct financing, take multiple measures to guide market expectations, and improve the quality and efficiency of financial services for private enterprises.