Asset management company Mo Qingyan transformation

As the three state-owned banks went public one after another, asset management companies that dispose of non-performing assets for state-owned banks have also taken more actions. The most important action is to ask for "transformation", and some hope to transform into investment Banks, some hope to transform into investment companies, and even commercial banks. Since asset management companies have disposed and will dispose of more than 2 trillion yuan of non-performing assets, their every move is naturally cause for concern.

It is questionable whether these transformation requirements proposed by asset management companies are realistic under the current circumstances.

First of all, the problems of the asset management companies themselves have not been solved.

The problems of asset management companies themselves are reflected in three aspects. The first is the issue of the system: the asset management company is still a vice-ministerial level institution, and the system and organizational structure still inherit the old framework of the original state-owned bank. If the system is not reformed, the problem of transformation will be impossible; the second is the problem of historical baggage: four At the beginning of the establishment of each asset management company, their registered capital was only 10 billion yuan, but they acquired 1.4 trillion yuan of non-performing loans at book value. Where does the money come from? More than 800 billion yuan in re-lending from the central bank and more than 600 billion yuan in bond issuance guaranteed by the Ministry of Finance. In the past two years, the three state-owned banks have undergone share reform, and asset management companies have also used the central bank's re-loans to purchase non-performing loans, with nearly 600 billion yuan. These are the historical burdens of asset management companies. There is still no clear statement on how to solve these burdens. Until these burdens are solved, it is difficult to put transformation on the agenda. The third is business problems: the establishment of four asset management companies It has been more than seven years. On the whole, according to the requirements of the Ministry of Finance, they must complete the task of disposing of non-performing assets before 2000 before the end of 2006. At present, there are still hundreds of billions of non-performing assets that need to be disposed of as soon as possible. During this period, with the exception of Huarong and Cinda, which have effectively explored the disposal of non-performing assets, the other two companies have explored less.

Secondly, even if the asset management company wants to transform, whether it is a commercial bank, an investment bank, or an investment company, the conditions are not yet ready.

The asset management company itself is the product of a large number of non-performing assets caused by the failure of state-owned banks. At present, it has inherited the old system of state-owned banks, and it has to start commercial banks. How can they do well? If you want to transform into an investment bank, the first thing to solve is the talent problem, because the core competitiveness of an investment bank is talent, which does not mean that a deputy ministerial-level investment bank can be competitive. The employees of top international investment banks often earn millions or even millions of dollars in annual salary, which is simply not what asset management companies can provide. At the same time, as a state-owned institution at the vice-ministerial level, if there is a huge income gap among employees, a series of problems will arise and cannot be sustained. In fact, when several state-owned banks set up investment banking departments, the biggest problem they encountered was the issue of treatment – can they hire first-class investment banking talents in accordance with market-based treatment? How to balance the income gap? The transformation of asset management companies into investment companies will also encounter such problems.

We have also noticed that the various transformation slogans are being put forward by the asset management companies themselves, rather than by a few governing bodies - the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank or the China Banking Regulatory Commission. In fact, several regulators have spoken cautiously about the transformation of asset managers. Why do asset management companies put forward the slogan of transformation so aggressively? Fundamentally, they do it for their own survival, as asset managers have been faced with the question of whether or not to keep them for the past few years - when the four asset managers were set up in 1999, the Treasury Department set a decade for them In March 2004, the Ministry of Finance more clearly required asset management companies to dispose of the 1.4 trillion yuan of non-performing assets that were first divested before 2000 before the end of 2006, and now there are only two months left. There are still hundreds of billions of non-performing assets waiting to be disposed of. As Chen Zhiwu, a professor of finance at Yale University, said, in China, any institution has not thought about closing its doors since its establishment, but has to find a reason to keep it in every possible way. As a result, China has added four more deputy departments. top asset management company. The fundamental purpose of the so-called transformation proposed by various asset management companies is to avoid the 10-year survival limit, and the institution can continue to remain. Whether their proposed transformation goals are realistic is another matter.

Actually, as for the way out for asset management companies, officials from the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank and the China Banking Regulatory Commission to some researchers have some ideas. These ideas, whether it is "four-in-two" or "four-in-one", or integrating assets The core idea of managing the company and transforming it into an asset disposal company under the deposit insurance institution established in the future is to change the current system of asset management companies and seek new living space on this basis. It can be expected that no matter which method decision makers ultimately adopt, the existing wholly state-owned system and the "deputy ministerial" administrative level of the four asset management companies cannot survive for a long time. This should be the transformation of asset management companies. Or the starting point for finding a way out.

From The Economic Observer.