邮储银行IPO是市场信心试金石

Back when China formed Postal Savings Bank in 2007, its already-listed banking behemoths garnered valuations of at least twice their book value and enthusiasm for the country knew no bounds. Now PSBC is its fifth-largest bank by assets and is about to brave the Hong Kong market — even though its fellows have not traded near book value in more than a year.

在2007年中国邮政储蓄银行(PSBC)成立的时候，中国那些业已上市的大银行的估值至少是它们账面价值的两倍，而且投资者对中国市场趋之若鹜。如今，按资产计算是中国第五大银行的中国邮政储蓄银行即将勇敢赴香港上市——即便中资银行在逾一年时间里的股价大大低于每股账面价值。

That joins a list of other challenges facing the world’s biggest public offering since Alibaba blasted past fevered expectations and raised a record $25bn in New York two years ago. Looking for between $8bn and $10bn, PSBC is altogether more modest. It will, however, be a far greater litmus test of investor sentiment towards China. 

此外，将成为自阿里巴巴(Alibaba)上市以来全球最大IPO的中国邮政储蓄银行上市还面临其他一系列挑战。两年前，阿里巴巴打破狂热预期，在纽约上市筹得创纪录的250亿美元资金。中国邮政储蓄银行预计募集金额为80亿至100亿美元之间，总体来说低调得多。然而，它将成为测试投资者对中国市场的情绪的一块重要得多的试金石。

Depending on your view, PSBC is either an unwieldy, undercapitalised, cost-inefficient bricks-and-mortar bank stuck in a bygone era, or a vast, under-exploited savings pool with unique knowledge of under-leveraged rural China, where it lends. The truth is that it is all of those things. The question is, will the glass half-full thinkers be prepared to back it when it launches its offering next month?

中国邮政储蓄银行是一家臃肿、资本不足、成本效益低、而且囿于过去时代的实体银行，还是一家对中国杠杆不足的农村地区（其主要贷款对象）有着独特了解、尚未得到充分开发的大型储蓄池？这取决于你怎么看。真实情况是，这两种描述都对。问题在于，当中国邮政储蓄银行下月IPO的时候，那些乐观的思想家准备好支持它了吗？

Those who have already placed bets include JPMorgan, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Singapore’s Temasek as well as DBS, the city-state’s biggest bank. Ant Financial, Alibaba’s payments arm, and its rival Tencent were also part of the same $7bn pre-IPO investment round last December. This blue-chip group valued PSBC at $41bn — far above the $30bn suggested by bankers earlier in 2015. Mark Machin, now head of CPPIB, described his fund’s $500m investment as a bet on the bank, not the financial sector, because it fits his broader aim to focus on rural China as well as on consumers.

已经下注的机构包括摩根大通(JPMorgan)、加拿大养老金计划投资委员会(CPPIB)、新加坡的淡马锡(Temasek)以及该国最大银行星展银行(DBS)。阿里巴巴旗下支付公司蚂蚁金服(Ant Financial)及其对手腾讯(Tencent)也在去年12月参与了中国邮政储蓄银行IPO前的同一轮70亿美元融资。这组优质投资者当时将中国邮政储蓄银行估值为410亿美元，远高于2015年初银行家们给出的300亿美元估值。CPPIB现任主管马克•梅钦(Mark Machin)将其基金的5亿美元投资描述为对中国邮政储蓄银行的押注，而非对金融业的押注，因为该行符合他服务于中国农村地区以及消费者的更宏大目标。

The uniqueness of PSBC lies in its 400m retail customers and 40,000-odd branches, which give it an on-the-ground network at least double the size of its better-known peers. The bank is also 90 per cent funded by deposits — well above the average. Compounding that is the fact that these are almost all retail savings and considered much stickier than corporate cash. The cash is also underused: PSBC has a loan to deposit ratio of 39 per cent versus more than 70 per cent at peers.

中国邮政储蓄银行的独特性在于其4亿零售客户和4万多家分支机构——这让该行拥有规模至少两倍于更知名银行的实体网络。并且，该行90%的资金来源于存款，远高于平均水平。更重要的是，这些存款几乎全都是散户储蓄，而散户储蓄的粘性被认为比企业存款大得多。这些资金也没有得到充分利用：中国邮政储蓄银行的贷存比是39%，而其他银行的这一比例一般超过70%。

Against that, investors must weigh up the fact that the bank’s profitability has been deteriorating at a faster pace than its rivals’. Last year, it produced a return on equity of 15 per cent. That might sound fabulous to western bank investors but it was down 13 percentage points from its 2012 level, according to Bernstein. It also lagged behind its peers by more than one percentage point. PSBC’s commercial relationship with its 83 per cent owner and parent, China Post Group, from whom it was split in 2007, is complicated too.

在这种背景下，投资者必须斟酌中国邮政储蓄银行盈利能力降速超过其竞争对手的事实。去年，该行的股本回报率是15%。对西方的银行投资者来说，这可能听起来很高，但伯恩斯坦研究公司(Bernstein)的数据显示，它比2012年下降了13个百分点，也比其他银行落后了逾1个百分点。中国邮政储蓄银行与持有其83%股份的母公司中国邮政集团(China Post Group)的商业关系也很复杂。2007年，中国邮政储蓄银行从中国邮政集团分离出来。

The biggest problem, meanwhile, for those selling the shares is valuation. Chinese state-owned financials cannot sell shares at below book value, and PSBC’s four big state-owned rivals are all trading at between 0.7 and 0.8 times book value. They last traded at par, and then only barely, in June 2015 during the mainland market boom that collapsed a year ago.

与此同时，发行股票最大的问题是估值。中国国有金融机构不能以低于账面价值的价格发行股票，但中国邮政储蓄银行的4大国有竞争对手目前的股价全都在账面价值的0.7倍至0.8倍之间。这些银行上次股价勉强等于账面价值是在2015年6月内地股市大幅上涨期间——内地股市随后出现暴跌。

Bankers involved say that PSBC’s low loan-to-deposit ratio means it is not dragged down by the bad loan fears that give its peers such a discount. “This is a once-in-a-decade deal,” said one banker involved in the process. “Do you want to miss that for paying up maybe 10 to 15 per cent?” 

相关银行家表示，中国邮政储蓄银行较低的贷存比意味着，它不会受到让其他银行估值出现如此大折扣的坏账担忧的拖累。一位参与中国邮政储蓄银行IPO的银行家表示：“这是十年一遇的IPO。你想错过这次机遇，然后多花可能10%或15%的钱吗？”

Hong Kong listings cannot adjust price ranges like New York deals can, so any failure to fill the book means pulling the deal. That is extremely unlikely since Chinese deals tend to come well-stocked with cornerstone investors, who accept a six-month lock-up in return for sizeable allocations. State-backed Chinese deals in particular are known for rounding up so-called friends and family to cut the risk of a deal failing. More than 40 per cent of all equity sold in Hong Kong this year has gone to cor\nerstones. State-backed CDB Leasing needed a record 85 per cent in June to get its $800m deal across the line.

在香港上市不能像在纽约上市那样调整价格区间，因此认购不足就意味着上市失败。但这种情况极不可能发生，因为中国的上市交易往往有许多基石投资者，这些投资者接受6个月的锁定期以换取高额配售。众所周知，政府支持的中国上市交易尤其擅长拉拢所谓的亲朋好友来降低上市失败的风险。今年所有在香港发行的股票中，逾40%出售给了基石投资者。今年6月，政府支持的国银租赁(CDB Leasing)需要将85%的上市股票配置给基石投资者才能完成筹资8亿美元的IPO交易，创下了历史最高纪录。

Bankers claim that top-name investors are queueing up to discuss PSBC, although in an initial public offering-starved environment this is hardly surprising. Usually the success of deals rests on their pricing and their early performance, as Alibaba’s did in New York. In Hong Kong, meanwhile, the success of PSBC’s float should be judged on the quality it attracts. 

银行家宣称，顶级投资者正在热议中国邮政储蓄银行，尽管在一个渴求IPO交易的环境中，这并不令人意外。通常而言，上市交易的成功取决于它们的定价和早期表现，就像阿里巴巴在纽约上市的情形。与此同时，在香港，中国邮政储蓄银行上市成功与否应该由其吸引的资金质量判断。