Author: Du Chuan
A few days ago, the People's Bank of China supported and guided the NAFMII to continue to promote and expand the bond financing support tool for private enterprises ("Second Arrow"), which is expected to support about 250 billion yuan in private enterprise bond financing, which has attracted market attention.
As early as 2018, in order to resolve the financing difficulties faced by private enterprises and small and micro enterprises, the central bank, together with relevant departments, studied the three main financing channels of bonds, credit and equity, and adopted a policy combination of "three arrows" to support the expansion of private enterprises. Financing channels to solve the "water shortage" problem of private enterprises.
Among them, the first arrow is the credit support for private enterprises, the second arrow is the bond financing support tool for private enterprises, and the third arrow is the equity financing support tool for private enterprises.
In the past four years, how effective has the "Three Arrows" been in solving the financing problems of private enterprises and small and micro enterprises?
What will be the next steps?
first arrow
The first arrow, the credit support facility.
The People's Bank of China provides long-term, moderate-cost credit funds for financial institutions to support private enterprises through targeted RRR cuts and Medium-Term Lending Facility (MLF).
Since 2018, the People's Bank of China has made great efforts to make good use of re-lending and re-discount tools, increasing the re-lending quota for small and medium-sized enterprises by 1.49 trillion yuan, reducing the re-lending rate by 0.75 percentage points, and encouraging financial institutions to increase credit to private enterprises.
Previously, private enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, were difficult and expensive to obtain financing, which was the "mountain" that restricted the development of enterprises.
Yi Gang, governor of the central bank, pointed out that it is necessary to design and implement incentive-compatible institutional arrangements to effectively improve the coverage, availability and convenience of financial services for the private economy, and promote reforms to "make up for shortcomings".
In recent years, the People's Bank of China has adhered to the implementation of a prudent monetary policy, maintained reasonably sufficient liquidity, guided a reasonable growth of credit, and encouraged financial institutions to increase loans to private enterprises, especially small and micro-sized enterprises. In conjunction with a number of relevant departments, we have actively introduced policies and measures in reducing taxes and fees, strengthening financing guarantees, fiscal discounts, and optimizing the credit system to effectively reduce the financing costs of private and small and micro enterprises.
It is reported that from 2018 to 2019, the central bank will periodically use the Targeted Medium-Term Lending Facility (TMLF) to support large commercial banks and joint-stock commercial banks to provide long-term stable funds to private enterprises. Facilitate discounts and give full play to the role of "head goose" for large and medium-sized banks.
In 2020, the central bank will create two direct tools.
From 2020 to December 2021, the Pratt & Whitney Small and Micro Enterprise Loan Deferred Principal and Interest Repayment Support Tool provided incentive funds of 21.7 billion yuan to local corporate banks; the Pratt & Whitney Small and Micro Enterprise Credit Loan Support Program provided 374 billion yuan of preferential funds to local corporate banks Yuan.
From 2022, the two direct tools will be successively converted into inclusive small and micro loan support tools, and from the second quarter of this year, the proportion of incentive funds will be increased from the initial 1% to 2%.
In the first three quarters of 2022, the incentive funds provided to local corporate financial institutions through inclusive small and micro loan support tools reached 21.3 billion yuan, supporting a total of 1.29 trillion yuan in inclusive small and micro loans.
Feng Lin, a senior analyst at the research and development department of Oriental Jincheng, pointed out in an interview with reporters that in recent years, the regulators have introduced a series of measures to encourage banks to increase loan support for private enterprises and small, medium and micro enterprises in times of great economic downturn pressure. Relief policies such as deferral of loan repayment and repayment of principal and interest have achieved positive policy effects.
Judging from the data, the availability of financing for private enterprises has increased.
At the end of September 2022, the balance of inclusive small and micro enterprise loans was 23.2 trillion yuan, a year-on-year growth rate of 24.6%, supporting 53.89 million small and micro business entities, a year-on-year increase of 31.7%, and the weighted average of newly issued inclusive small and micro enterprise loans in September The interest rate is 4.72%.
At the end of June 2022, the loan balance of private enterprises in banking financial institutions was 58.2 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.4% year-on-year, faster than the growth rate of all loans of financial institutions. The number of private enterprises with loan balances reached 83.47 million, an increase of 11.4% year-on-year.
second arrow
The second arrow is the bond financing support tool for private enterprises.
In October 2018, the central bank established a bond financing support tool for private enterprises as the second arrow in the "three arrows" to resolve the financing difficulties of private enterprises.
The central bank uses re-lending to provide part of the initial capital, and professional institutions conduct market-oriented operations, and provide credit enhancement for the development of private enterprises that are operating normally and encounter temporary liquidity difficulties by selling credit risk mitigation tools, guaranteeing credit enhancement and other methods. support.
In the opinion of market analysts, the bond market has broad space to solve the financing problems of private enterprises.
Yi Gang once said that the bond market is a breakthrough to solve this problem.
If the company can issue bonds smoothly, the bank will not cut off the loan for the company, and the stock price of the company will also improve.
Mingming, chief economist of CITIC Securities, told Yicai.com that the government has introduced a series of measures to expand the application scenarios of private enterprise bonds and improve the liquidity of private enterprise bonds. Credit risk mitigation tools represented by credit certificates) are playing a role in promoting risk diversification and sharing and assisting private enterprises in financing.
Data from the Association of Dealers shows that the launch of the CRMW tool has played a positive role in supporting the bond financing of private enterprises.
Since the NAFMII promoted the establishment of CRMW to support private enterprise bond financing in the fourth quarter of 2018, as of the end of October 2022, the cumulative nominal principal of CRMW linked to private enterprise bonds was 42 billion yuan, and a total of 113.2 billion yuan of private enterprise bond issuance was supported, of which AAA, AA+ and AA grades accounted for 12%, 62% and 26%, respectively, and the middle and high grades accounted for a total of 74%.
On November 8, the NAFMII announced that it will continue to promote and expand the bond financing support tool for private enterprises ("Second Arrow") to support private enterprises, including real estate companies, to issue bonds for financing.
It is expected to support about 250 billion yuan of private enterprise bond financing, and the capacity will be further expanded depending on the situation.
In contrast, the support direction and policy goals of the "Second Arrow" are more specific.
For example, in the way that professional institutions support private enterprises to issue bonds for financing, in addition to increasing credit through guarantees and creating credit risk mitigation certificates, new methods such as “direct purchase of bonds” have been added; private enterprises” etc.
Recently, the price of private housing enterprise bonds has fluctuated greatly, and investors' confidence is low, and it is easier for the market to form pessimistic expectations.
The continued advancement and expansion of the "Second Arrow" is conducive to restoring the market's confidence in the real estate bonds of private enterprises.
"The support methods are more abundant, and the policy intentions are clearer. This will support the prices of real estate bonds of private enterprises with good fundamentals but affected by the pessimistic market sentiment, thereby restoring market confidence, helping private real estate enterprises to improve financing and the real estate industry and the real estate industry. The market has stabilized," Feng Lin said.
Mingming believes that the bond financing support tools for private enterprises can effectively guide market institutions to improve their risk appetite and financing atmosphere for private enterprises, and alleviate the problem of private enterprises' credit shrinkage; this time, the focus on supporting real estate enterprises will promote the recovery of private real estate enterprises' financing and reduce the risk of real estate enterprises. Financing costs, while boosting investor confidence and ensuring a virtuous circle of real estate industry operations.
third arrow
After the first "two arrows" were fired one after another and achieved certain results, the market paid special attention to the situation of the "third arrow".
The third arrow is an equity financing support tool for private enterprises.
It is understood that the expansion of equity financing channels for private enterprises has always been the focus of financial management departments.
Previously, the People's Bank of China, together with relevant departments, conducted a serious study on equity financing support tools for private enterprises. The basic idea is to follow the principles of marketization and rule of law, and through certain policy designs, to encourage the participation of financial institutions and social capital, and professional institutions to carry out marketization. Operate, independently select qualified private enterprises for a small proportion of equity investment that does not affect the actual control of the enterprise.
The achievements of the capital market in supporting the equity financing of private enterprises in recent years have confirmed the great impetus for the joint participation of various types of capital.
In fact, the equity financing channels of private enterprises have been continuously expanded, especially the role of the Science and Technology Innovation Board and the Growth Enterprise Market in promoting the flow of funds to private enterprises.
In the past three years, 328 private companies have been listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, accounting for 79.1% of the number of listed companies in this sector; the initial raised funds of 410.2 billion yuan, accounting for 62.9% of the initial raised funds of listed companies in this sector.
There were 393 private companies listed on the Growth Enterprise Market, accounting for 89.7% of the number of listed companies in this sector; the initial raised funds of 334.2 billion yuan, accounting for 84.1% of the initial raised funds of listed companies in this sector.
With the launch of the pilot registration system for the Growth Enterprise Market, the entry barriers are diversified, and it is more tolerant of loss-making companies and companies with special equity structures. The direct impact of this is that more private companies can enter the capital market.
According to statistics, since 2020, the number of private enterprises that have entered the capital market has reached 1,089, raising funds of 968.2 billion yuan.
China's capital market with more private enterprises is full of vitality.
In the first half of 2022, a total of 176 IPOs (initial public offerings) were issued in the A-share market, raising 255.382 billion yuan, accounting for 39% of global IPO financing, making it the world's largest IPO market.
Feng Lin suggested that in supporting the equity financing of private enterprises, in addition to encouraging market-oriented institutions such as private equity funds to continue to exert their professional advantages, and to resolve the liquidity risks of private enterprises through market-oriented mergers and acquisitions, some companies have great development potential and strong growth potential. The private enterprises that are still in use can also consider strengthening cooperation with state-owned capital, complementing each other's advantages and jointly developing the market.
And this is exactly what President Yi Gang has emphasized many times in recent years on different occasions. On the issue of financial support for the development of private enterprises, we must always adhere to the "two unswerving", adhere to the same policy design and open and fair policy design. Market operation mechanism.