According to the report, investors once again regard China Bank shares as demand targets. The most popular of these banks is China Merchants Bank Co., Ltd., 600036. Shanghai, 3968.HK and China CITIC Bank (hereinafter referred to as China Merchants Bank). This stock has risen nearly 60% this year, setting a record high.
But if you look closely, you will find that problems are brewing. China Merchants Bank relies heavily on wealth management products, which promise a higher rate of return than ordinary bank deposits. In recent years, Chinese banks have issued hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth management products. Although most customers think that banks will guarantee these products, most of them are not included in the bank's balance sheet. The balance of wealth management products issued by China Merchants Bank is about 2. 1 trillion yuan (US$ 3160 million), which is the largest among medium-sized banks. Wealth management products not only bring fee income to China Merchants Bank, but also serve as a financing channel.
In the context of regulatory rectification, the wealth management products issued by China Merchants Bank have decreased compared with the previous year. Analysts at Autonomous Research said that if the regulatory authorities stepped up efforts to force China Merchants Bank to include all wealth management products in its accounts, the bank would need to raise 65.438 billion yuan+000 billion yuan of new capital.
Another reason why China Merchants Bank's balance sheet may not be as beautiful as it looks is that the bank widely uses so-called asset management plans. This increasingly popular tool allows banks to set up non-consolidated entities, and use these entities to buy some non-performing loans of banks, and then package them into securities for sale to investors. China Merchants Bank's exposure increased by nearly 20% in the first half of this year, reaching more than 400 billion yuan, which is likely to be a hiding place for many non-performing loans.
In addition, the profit of China Merchants Bank is also under pressure. A big customer of China Merchants Bank is Anbang, a controversial insurance company, which owns new york waldorf and holds 65,438+00% equity of China Merchants Bank. After a wave of overseas acquisitions, China is investigating overseas acquisitions, and Anbang is also investigating. If Anbang's business is threatened, China Merchants Bank may also be affected.
There are signs that China Merchants Bank is preparing for a possible capital shortage. The bank said last month that it would raise up to $5.3 billion by issuing bonds and non-public offering of preferred shares. Last week, China Merchants Bank said it would inject capital into an asset management subsidiary, which is responsible for handling the bank's asset management business of more than $654.38+50 billion.
All the problems show that China Merchants Bank's current P/B ratio of 1.3 times is too high. In contrast, the P/B ratio of other comparable Chinese banks is generally lower than 1 times. China Merchants Bank should be the most worrying bank when the banking industry in China is facing difficulties.