Shadow banking trip takeaways: We expect 18% 2013E TSF balance
growth, despite potential modest growth slowdown of trusts
We organized a client trip to visit regulators, trust companies, and
banks’/brokers’ wealth management departments. Key takeaways include:
(1) despite the potential modest slowdown of new trust volume in 2013E due
to strengthened due diligence, distribution and regulatory requirements, we
forecast a 18% total social financing (TSF) balance growth, vs. 20% in 2012,
which should be sufficient to support 7.5%+ real GDP growth;
(2) This is driven by: (a) regulators continuing to promote direct financing
instead of indirect financing through banks; (b) likely continued informal
loan securitization through new channels such as brokers’ asset
management businesses, which compete with traditional channels such as
trust products, banks’ wealth management products (WMP) products and
interbank entrusted payment products, etc.; (c) continued strong credit
demand especially from sectors which do not have easy access to bank
credit such as property, private companies and local government funding
vehicles (LGFV); and (d) regulators’ intention to strengthen the disclosure
and product segregation of WMPs rather than strictly limiting WMP growth
or imposing capital requirements.
(3) we expect new trust products within PBOC’s TSF to be Rmb1 tn in 2013E,
a decline vs. Rmb1.3 tn previously, mainly due to: recent tightening of LGFV’s
trust products and non-bank financing by the MOF/NDRC/CBRC/PBOC; banks
are more careful in distributing third-party trust products due to the recent
potential default cases. This, however, could be offset by still strong growth
appetite of trust companies, and investors seeking high yields.
Long-term risks to be monitored; prefer higher quality banks
Although we expect continued GDP stabilization/recovery on strong TSF/
shadow banking credit growth in 1H13, we continue to be concerned over
the long-term rapidly rising corporate debt leverage to over 150%+, the
relatively weak underwriting standards of shadow banking credits, and the
capital allocation distortion due to perceived implicit guarantees. We
believe the banks’ significant rerating will hinge on policies to stimulate
consumption, and focus on relatively higher quality banks with stronger
risk management/ franchise and less off-balance sheet items in the nearterm
rally, including our Buy rated CMB H/Industrial A (on CL),
ABC/CCB/ICBC/ Minsheng H/A, CQRCB. Key risks: worse than expected