中国上市公司偏好股权融资：非制度性因素（金融外文翻译及原文）

Abstract ：This article concentrates on the listed companies’ financing activities in China, analyses the reasons that why the listed companies prefer to equity fund from the aspect of non-systematic factors by using western financing theories, such as financing cost, types and qualities of the enterprises’ assets, profitability, industry factors, shareholding structure factors, level of financial management and society culture, and concludes that the preference to equity fund is a reasonable choice to the listed companies according to Chinese financing environment. At last, there are some concise suggestions be given to rectify the companies’ preference to equity fund.

Keywords: Equity fund, Non-systematic factors, financial cost

The listed companies in China prefer to equity fund, According to the statistic data showed in <China Securities Journal>, the amount of the listed companies finance in capital market account to 95.87 billions in 1997, among which equity fund take the proportion of 72.5%, and the proportion is 72.6% in 1998 and 72.3% in 1999, on the other hand, the proportion of debt fund to total fund is respective 17.8%, 24.9% and 25.1% in those three years. The proportion of equity fund to total fund is lower in the developed capital market than that in China. Take US for example, when American enterprises need to fund in the capital market, they prefer to debt fund than equity fund. The statistic data shows that, from 1970 to 1985, the American enterprises’ debt fund financed occupied the 91.7% proportion of outside financing, more than equity fund. Yan Dawu etc. found that, approximately 3/4 of the listed companies preferred to equity fund in China. Many researchers agree upon that the listed companies’ outside financing following this order: first one is equity fund, second one is convertible bond, third one is short-term liabilities, last one is long-term liabilities. Many researchers usually analyze our national listed companies’ preference to equity fund with the systematic factors arising in the reform of our national economy. They thought that it just because of those systematic facts that made the listed companies’ financial activities betray to western classical financing theory. For example, the “picking order” theory claims that when enterprise need fund, they should turn to inside fund (depreciation and retained earnings) first, and then debt fund, and the last choice is equity fund. In this article, the author thinks that it is because of the specific financial environment that activates the enterprises’ such preference, and try to interpret the reasons of that preference to equity fund by combination of non-systematic factors and western financial theories. 

According to western financing the theories, capital cost of equity fund is more than capital cost of debt fund, thus the enterprise should choose debt fund first, then is the turn to equity fund when it fund outside. We should understand that this conception of “capital cost” is taken into account by investors, it is somewhat opportunity cost of the investors, can also be called expected returns. It contains of risk-free rate of returns and risk rate of returns arising from the investors’ risk   investment. It is different with financing cost in essence. Financing cost is the cost arising from enterprises’ financing activities and using fund, we can call it fund cost. If capital market is efficient, capital cost should equal to fund cost, that is to say, what investors gain in capital market should equal to what fund raisers pay, or the transfer of fund is inevitable. But in an inefficient capital market, the price of stock will be different from its value because of investors’ action of   speculation; they only chase capital gain and don’t want to hold the stocks in a long time and receive dividends. Thus the listed companies can gain fund with its fund cost being lower than capital cost.

But in our national capital market, capital cost of equity fund is very low; it is because of the following factors: first, the high P/E Ratio (Price Earning Ratio) of new issued shares. According to calculation, average P/E Ratio of Chinese listed companies’ shares is between 30 and 40, it also is maintained at 20 although drops somewhat recently. But the normal P/E Ratio should be under 20 according to experience. We can observe the P/E was only 13.2 from 1874 to 1988 in US, and only 10 in Hong Kong. High P/E Ratio means high share issue price, then the capital cost of equity fund drops even given the same level of dividend. Second, low dividend policy in the listed companies, capital cost of equity fund decided by dividend pay-out ratio and price of per share. In China, many listed companies pay little or even no dividends to their shareholders. According to statistic data, there were 488 listed companies paid no dividend to their shareholders in 1998,   58.44 percents of all listed companies, there were 590, 59.83 percents in 1999, even 2000 in which China Securities Regulatory Commission issue new files to rule dividend policy of companies, there were only 699 companies which pay dividends, 18.47 percents more than that in 1999, but dividend payout ratio deduce 22%. Thus capital cost of equity is very low. Third, there is no rigidity on equity fund, if the listed companies choose equity fund, they can use the fund forever and has no obligation to return this fund. Most of listed companies are controlled by Government in China, taking financing risk into account, the major stockholders prefers to equity fund. The management also prefer equity fund because its lower fund cost and needn’t to be paid off, then their position will be more stable than financing in equity fund. We can conclude from the above analysis that cost of equity fund is lower than cost of debt fund in Chinese listed companies and the listed companies prefer to such low-cost fund.

Static Trade-off Theory tells us, the value of enterprise with financial leverage is decided by the value of self-owned capital; value arising from tax benefit, cost of financial embarrassment       and agency cost. Cost of financial embarrassment and agency cost are negative correlative to the types and qualities of companies’ assets, if the enterprise has more intangible assets, more assets with lower quality, it will has lower liquidity and its assets have lower mortgage value. When this kind of enterprise faces to great financial risk, it will have no way to solve its questions by selling its assets. Furthermore, because care for the ability of turning into cash of the mortgage assets, the creditors will high the level of rate and lay additional items in financial contract to rule the debtor’s action, all of those will enhance the agency cost and deduce the companies’ value. Qualcomm is supplier of wireless data and communication service in America, it is the inventor and user of CDMA and it also occupies the technology of HDR. The market value of its share is 1120 billions dollars at the end of March, 2000, but the quantities of long-term liabilities is zero. Why? Some reasons may be that there are some competitors in the market who own analogous   technologies and the management of Qualcomm Company takes conservative attitude in financing activities. But the most important factor may be Qualcomm Company owns a mass of   intangible assets which will have lower convertibility and the company’s value will decline when it has no enough money to pay for its debt. 

Many listed companies in China are transformed from the national enterprises. In the transformation, these listed companies take over the high-quality assets of the national enterprises, but with the development of economy, some projects can not coincide with the market demand and the values of relative assets decline. On the other hand, there are many intangible assets in new high-tech companies. State-owned companies and high-tech companies are the most parts of the capital market. We can conclude that the qualities of listed companies’ assets are very low. This point is supported by the index of P/B (Price-to-Book value) which is usually thought as one of the most important indexes which can weigh the qualities of the listed companies’ assets. According to statistic data coming from Shenzhen Securities Information Company, by the end of November 14, 2003, there were 412 companies whose P/B is less than 2, take the 30% proportions of total listed companies which issue A-share in China, among them, there were 150 companies whose P/B is less than 1.53, and weighted average P/B of the stock market is 2.42. Lower qualities of assets means more cost may be brought out from debt fund and lower total value of the listed companies. Thus the listed companies prefer to equity fund when need outside financial support in China.

Financial Leverage Theory tells us that a small change in company’s profit may make great change in company’s EPS (Earnings per share). Just like leverage, we can get an amplified action by use of it. Debt fund can supply us with this leverage, by use of debt fund, these companies which have high level of profitability will get higher level of EPS because debt fund produces more profit for shareholders than interest shareholder shall pay. On the contrary, these companies which have low level of profitability will get lower level of EPS by use of debt fund because debt fund can not produce enough profit for shareholder to fulfill the demand of paying off the interests. Edison International Company has steady amount of customers and many intangible assets, these supply it with high level of profitability and ability to gain debt fund, its debt account to 67.2% proportions of its total assets in 1999.

Listed companies in developed countries or regions always have high level of profitability. Take US for example, there are many listed companies which have excellent performance in American capital market when do business, such as J.P Morgan, its EPS is $11.16 per share in 1999. Besides it, GM, GE, Coca Cola, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Dell etc. all always are profitable. In Hong Kong, most of those companies whose stock included in Hang Sang Index have the level of EPS more than 1 HKD, many are more than 2 HKD. Such as Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited, its EPS is 7.66 HKD. But listed companies do not have such excellent performance in profitability in China inland. Their profitability is common low. Take the performance of 2000 for example, the weighted average EPS of total listed companies is only 0.20 Yuan per share, and the weighted average P/B is 2.65 Yuan per share, 8.55 percents of these listed companies have negative profit. With low or no profit, the benefit nixes, listed companies’ preference to equity fund is a reasonable phenomenon. Can be gained from debt fund is very little; the listed companies can even suffer from the financial distress caused by debt fund. So with the consideration of shareholders’ interest, the listed companies prefer to equity fund when need outside financial support in China.

Listed companies not only face to external financing environmental impacts, but also the structure of the companies shares. Shareholding structure of Chinese listed companies shows characteristics as followed: I. Ownership structure is fairly complex. In addition to the public shares, there are shares held with inland fund and foreign stocks, state-owned shares, legal person shares, and internal employee shares, transferred allotted shares, A shares, B shares, H shares And N shares, and other distinction. From 1995 to 2003, Chinese companies’ outstanding shares of the total equity share almost have no change, even declined slightly. II. There are different prices, dividends, and rights of shares issued by same enterprise. III. The over-concentration of shares. We use the quantity of shares of the three major shareholders who top the list of shareholders of the listed companies to measure the concentration of stock. We study he concentration of stock of these companies which issue new share publicly in the years from 1995 to 2003 and focus on the situation of Chinese listed companies over the same period. The results showed that: from 1995 to 2003, the company-Which once transferred or allotted shares-whose top three shareholders’ shareholding ratio are generally higher than the average level of all the listed companies, and most of these company's top three shareholders holding 40 percent or higher percent of companies’ shares. In some years, the maximum number even is more than 90 percent, indicating that the company with the implementation of transferred and allotted shares have relatively high concentration rate of shares and major shareholders have absolute control over it. In short, transferring allotting shares and the issuance of additional shares have a certain relevance to the company’s concentration of ownership structure; the company's financing policy is largely controlled by the major shareholders.

Chinese listed companies’ special shareholding structure effects its financing action. Because stockholders of the state-owned shares, legal person shares, social and outstanding shares, foreign share have a different objective function, their modes of financing preferences vary, and their preference affect the financing structure of listed companies. Controlling shareholders which hold state-owned shares account for the status of enterprises and carry out financing decisions in accordance with their own objective function. When the objective function conflict with the other shareholders benefit, they often damage the interests of other shareholders by use of the status of controlling. As the first major shareholders of the companies, government has multiple objectives, not always market-oriented, it prefers to use safe fund such as equity fund to maintain the value of state-owned assets, thus resulting in listed company’s preference to equity financing. Debt financing bring business with greater pressure to pay off the par value and interests. Therefore, the state-owned companies are showing a more offensive attitude to debt fund, again because of Chinese state-controlled listed companies have the absolute status in all listed company.

From: International Journal of Business and Management; October, 2009.

 

 

 

 

 

 

中国上市公司偏好于股权融资，根据中国证券报的数据显示，1997年上市公司在资本市场的融资金额为95.87亿美元，其中股票融资的比例是72.5％，，在1998年和1999年比例分别为72.6％和72.3％，另一方面，债券融资的比例分别是17.8％，24.9％和25.1％。在这三年，股票融资的比例，在比中国发达的资本市场中却在下跌。以美国为例，当美国企业需要的资金在资本市场上，于股权融资相比他们宁愿选择债券融资。统计数据显示，从1970年到1985年，美日企业债券融资占了境外融资的91.7％，比股权融资高很多。阎达五等发现，大约中国3/4的上市公司偏好于股权融资。许多研究的学者认为，上市公司按以下顺序进行外部融资：第一个是股票基金，第二个是可转换债券，三是短期债务，最后一个是长期负债。许多研究人员通常分析我国上市公司偏好股权是由于我们国家的经济改革所带来的制度性因素。他们认为，上市公司的融资活动违背了西方古典融资理论只是因为那些制度性原因。例如，优序融资理论认为，当企业需要资金时，他们首先应该转向内部资金（折旧和留存收益），然后再进行债权融资，最后的选择是股票融资。在这篇文章中，笔者认为，这是因为具体的金融环境激活了企业的这种偏好，并结合了非制度性因素和西方金融理论，尝试解释股权融资偏好的原因。

按照西方融资理论，债务融资的成本要比股权融资的成本低得多，因此企业首先应选择债券融资，然后才选择股权融资。我们应该了解，这种“资本成本”的概念是考虑到有机会成本投资者，也可称为预期收益，它包含了无风险利率的回报，从投资者的风险投资产生的收益风险率。它在本质上和融资成本不同，融资成本是因企业的融资活动和使用资金所产生的成本，我们可以称之为资金成本。如果资本市场是有效的，资本成本应该等于资金成本，也就是说，投资者在资本市场得到的收益应该等同于集资者支付的费用或专一的资金，这是不可避免的。但是在效率低下的资本市场,股票的价格将是不同于它的价值，因为投资者的投机行为，他们只追逐资本收益，不希望长期持有的股票和分红。因此，上市公司可以得到其资金成本比资本成本低是基金。

但是，在我国资本市场，股权融资的成本非常低，这是因为以下因素是：第一，新发行股份的高P/E比率（市盈率）。据测算，平均P/E的中国上市公司的股份比例为30和40，它也是保持在20尽管最近有所下降，但根据经验正常的P/E比率应低于20。我们可以观察到1874年至1988年在美国的P/E仅13.2，香港只有10。高P/E比率意味着高的股票发行价格，权益资金成本下降，即使考虑到在相同的股息水平上。第二，上市公司的低股息政策，股票资金的资本成本决定了分红派息率和每股价格。在中国，很多上市公司支付很少或者甚至不向股东支付红利。据统计，1998年共有488家上市公司对股东不支付股息，占所有上市公司的58.44％，在1999年有590家， 比例为59.83％，甚至2000年中，中国证券监督管理委员会发行新的股息政策文件后，当时只有699家公司支付股息，比例是18.47％，公司数比1999年多，但分红比例减少了22％。因此，股权资本成本非常低。第三，股权融资没有硬性约束，如果上市公司选择股权融资，他们可以使用资金，永远也没有义务归还。上市公司大部分是由中国政府考虑到融资的风险，大股东倾向于股权融资，管理层也喜欢，因为它的股本资金成本较低的资金，不需要支付了，那么他们的地位将较稳定。我们可以从以上分析得出结论：在中国，上市公司股票资金的成本低于债券融资的成本，上市公司更愿意这些低成本的资金。

静态权衡理论告诉我们，财务杠杆决定于企业价自有资本的价值，而价值从税收优惠，财政困境的成本和代理成本产生。财政困境的成本和代理成本公司资产的类型和质量负相关，如果企业有更无形的资产，更多低质量的资产，这将拥有较低的流动性和较低的资产抵押价值。当这类企业面临着很大的金融风险时，就没有办法来解决其资产出售的问题。此外，因为对抵押贷款资产转变成现金的能力的关注，债权人将提高利率水平，降低金融合约其他项目的债务人规则，这些都将提高代理成本和降低公司价值。美国高通公司是无线数据和通信服务供应商，它是CDMA的发明者和用户，也占据了HDR技术。2000年３月底，其股票的市场价值在1120亿美元，但长期负债的数量是零。为什么呢？原因可能是有一些在市场上拥有类似技术的竞争对手和高通公司管理层采取保守态度的融资活动。但最重要的因素可能是高通公司拥有大量具有较低质量的可兑换无形资产将，它没有足够的资金来支付其债务时，公司的价值会下降。

在中国，许多上市公司是由国有企业改造而来的。在转型中，上市企业接管了国有企业的高效优质资产，但随着我国经济的发展，有些项目未能配合市场供求下降相应资产价值。另一方面，新的高科技公司也有许多无形的资产。国有企业和高科技公司是资本市场的大部分地区。我们可以得出结论，上市公司的资产质量却很低。这一点是P/B指数（股价与账面价值）支持的，这通常作为可以衡量的上市公司的资产质量最重要的指标。据深圳证券信息公司的统计数据，截至到2003年11月14日，共有412个公司的P/b小于2，占在中国发行A股的上市公司的比例的30％，其中，有150家公司的P/b小于1.53，而股市的加权平均P/ｂ为2.42。资产质量低意味着债务资金会带来更多的成本，并降低上市公司的总价值。因此，在中国进行外部融资是，上市公司更倾向于股权。

财务杠杆理论告诉我们，在公司利润的小变化可能使公司的每股收益发生巨大变化。就像杠杆，我们可以通过使用它扩增行动。债券融资可以充分利用这个作用，这些公司有较高的盈利水平将得到更高的每股收益水平，因为债券资本产生的利息为股东提供的利润比股东应当支付的更多。相反，这些公司的低盈利率会降低债券的每股盈利水平，因为债券不能产生股东履行清偿的利益需求来满足足够的利润。1999年，爱迪生国际公司具有稳定的客户量和许多无形的资产，这些提供了高层次的盈利能力来获得债务资金，其债务占其总资产的67.2％。

在发达国家或地区的上市公司始终有高盈利水平。以美国为例，在美国资本市场有许多表现优秀的上市公司，如JP摩根，其1999年每股收益为每股11.16。此外还有大众，通用，可口可乐，IBM，英特尔，微软，戴尔等，都始终是盈利的。在香港，这些公司的股票纳入恒生指数的每股盈利有超过1港元的水平，许多人都超过2港元。如长江实业（集团）有限公司，其每股盈利为7.66港元。但是，中国内陆的上市公司没有优良的盈利能力，他们的盈利能力普遍较低。以2000年为例，整体上市公司的加权平均每股收益仅为每股0.20元，加权平均P/B为2.65元，每股8.55％，这些上市公司都负利润或低或没有利润，可以从债券资金得到的好处很少;上市公司甚至可能遭受债务资金所造成的财务危机。因此，考虑了股东利益，中国上市公司在寻求外部资金支持时，更愿意选择股权融资。

上市公司不仅要面对外部融资环境的影响，而且还受到这些公司的股权结构的影响。中国上市公司股权结构具有如下特点：一，股权结构相当复杂。除了社会公众股，也有与内地和海外股票基金，国有股持股，法人股和内部职工股，转配股，A股，B股，H股和N股，以及其他。从1995年到2003年，中国公司流通股的总股本份额几乎没有变化，甚至略有下降。二，由同一企业发行有不同的价格，股息和权利的股票。三，过度集中的股票。 我们利用的持股数量，以衡量股权集中的主要股东的股份数量。我们研究，这些公司从1995年至2003年的新股票公开发行，关注同一时期中国上市公司的情况。结果表明：1995至2003年，公司的每一次转让或分配的股份，其前三大股东持股比例一般都高于全部上市公司的平均水平，以及这些公司的前三大股东大多数持有40％或更高的公司的股份。在有些年，最大数量甚至是90％以上，这表明由于转移及配发股份的实施公司有相对较高的股票集中度和大股东拥有绝对控制权。总之，转让股份及配发额外股份发行的相关公司的所有权集中结构和公司的融资政策，主要是受大股东的控制。

  附注：本文摘自“国际商业管理杂志”2009年10月。