Central Huijin eyes role as active shareholder

Central Huijin Investment Ltd, an arm of the $300 billion sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp, will continue to play a big role in financial reform by buying stakes in State-owned financial institutions as "an active shareholder", Chairman Lou Jiwei said.

"As a State-owned shareholder, Central Huijin doesn't intervene in the day-to-day operations of the institutions," said Lou, as quoted by Xinhua News Agency on Monday.

"Instead, Huijin's practice to guarantee the rights of the contributors by relying on corporate governance channels without any administrative approval is a mode beneficial to the country on managing State-owned financial assets."

As a possible candidate for the next central bank governor or finance minister, Lou stirred up speculation with his remarks that a plan to create a financial State-owned assets supervision and administration commission might be dropped. Such a commission would operate at the ministry level as both an investor and regulator of the financial sector.

The plan has faced strong opposition from market players and analysts, as such institutions seems to be less market-oriented and might involve administrative intervention.

At the end of last year, news media reported the new commission would combine the financial management authority of the finance department of the Ministry of Finance, the central bank, the China Banking Regulatory Commission and Central Huijin.

"The current structure that separates the government's role of regulator and investor works well. It is not necessary to set up a new commission that operates like both a football player and a referee," said Zhao Xijun, deputy dean of the school of finance at Renmin University of China.

He said there is possibility that regulators for each financial sector might merge in the future if the businesses of financial institutions get more comprehensive and universal, but such a decision must be based on market maturity and players' calls.

Central Huijin had injected 964.5 billion yuan ($154.2 billion) into State-owned financial institutions by the end of June and holds equity valued at 2.1 trillion yuan, accounting for more than 60 percent of the total financial equity owned by the central government.

By the end of the first half, the assets of the institutions with Central Huijin as shareholders reached 6.5 trillion yuan, up 25.2 percent per year on average in five years, the agency reported.

The company will continue to buy stakes of four major State-owned lenders, and it has been purchasing shares of the Big Four banks in the secondary market since Oct 10, Huijin said in a statement released on its official website in October.

The four banks are Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd, Bank of China Ltd, China Construction Bank Corp and Agricultural Bank of China Ltd.

The announcement means the major shareholder in China's main State-owned banks has extended a yearlong purchase program that kicked off after the Shanghai index closed at its lowest level in more than two years.

Lou said the share prices of China's Big Four banks don't reflect their current operating results, and the decision reflects its confidence in the value of the banks' shares in the long run.

Shares of ICBC have dropped by 8 percent so far this year, with BOC down 4.5 percent, CCB off 6.8 percent and ABC down 2.3 percent during the same period, according to data compiled by Dow Jones.

In the third quarter, Central Huijin bought more than 6.26 million shares of ICBC and 18.8 million shares of BOC, marking the fourth straight quarter of banking-share purchases, according to statements released by the two lenders earlier this week.

Central Huijin bought 7 million shares of ICBC and 762,600 shares of BOC from April to June.

In the first three months, it bought more than 50 million shares of ICBC, nearly 84 million shares of BOC, 23 million shares of China Construction Bank Corp, and 29 million shares of Agricultural Bank of China Ltd.

wangxiaotian@chinadaily.com.cn