Hengfeng Bank once again mentioned whether the goal of "listing as a whole" and "listing within five years" can be achieved as scheduled

Recently, Hengfeng Bank Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hengfeng Bank") held the 2024 bank-wide work conference in Jinan. On March 27, the bank's official WeChat public account disclosed the content of the meeting. According to reports, in 2023, the total assets of Hengfeng Bank will be 1.44 trillion yuan, and the annual operating income will be 25.3 billion yuan. It is worth noting that Hengfeng Bank once again mentioned "overall listing" in the "General Requirements for Doing a Good Job in Hengfeng Bank at Present and in the Future".

In fact, by October 2024, it will be four years since Hengfeng Bank once proposed the goal of "going public within five years". In addition, 2024 is also the beginning of the new leadership team of Hengfeng Bank, which is currently being formed, to officially perform a full year. Whether Hengfeng Bank can realize its dream of listing in the next two years has attracted the attention of the market.

Mentioned "listing" at the annual bank-wide work meeting for two consecutive years

To be precise, Hengfeng Bank held this meeting on March 21. The meeting summarized and reviewed the main work in 2023 and made arrangements for key tasks in 2024 and the coming period. Xin Shuren, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Hengfeng Bank, attended the meeting and delivered a speech, and Zheng Xianzhong, member of the Party Committee and Vice President (acting as the president), deployed the business work.

Regarding the listing, when referring to the general requirements for doing a good job in the work of Hengfeng Bank at present and in the future, the meeting emphasized that "(will) aim at the four major goals of 'improving the quality and efficiency of serving the real economy, seeking steady development through risk prevention and control, promoting high-quality development with improving efficiency, and integrating the forces of all parties with overall listing', and solidly promote the seven major tasks of structural adjustment, capital conservation, branch differentiation, innovative characteristic model, bigger and better customer base, building a strong head office, and improving the risk control system, so as to consolidate the management of the party, the talent team, incentives and constraints, and The six guarantees of excellent work style, scientific and technological system, and cultural construction ensure steady development and strive to contribute to the construction of a financial power. ”

The reporter noted that this is the second consecutive year that Hengfeng Bank has mentioned listing-related work at the annual bank-wide work conference.

In April 2023, Hengfeng Bank announced that at present and in the future, it will benchmark the listing conditions, steadily promote the overall listing, keep up with market changes, prepare for listing in a forward-looking manner, continue to do a good job in risk mitigation and compliance management, and choose the opportunity to start the listing work.

Among the 12 joint-stock commercial banks in China, Hengfeng Bank is the only one that has not yet been listed. However, this "road to listing", Hengfeng Bank has gone through several twists and turns and gone through ten years.

In 2024, we will accelerate the restructuring of our business

According to the official website, Hengfeng Bank is headquartered in Jinan City, Shandong Province, formerly known as Yantai Housing Savings Bank, which was established in 1987. In 2003, with the approval of the People's Bank of China, it was restructured into Hengfeng Bank Co., Ltd. In 2019, the market-oriented reform unit was reconstructed.

In 2014, Hengfeng Bank publicly disclosed its listing plan for the first time and decided to officially launch it in 2015. However, affected by the investigation of the first chairman Jiang Xiyun and other events, the promotion of Hengfeng Bank's listing plan was affected.

After a few years of silence, Hengfeng Bank restated its listing goal. In 2017, the bank announced that it would accelerate the progress of the listing and establish a specific timetable for the promotion, that is, it planned to complete the listing of H shares by the end of December 2018 and the additional issuance of A shares by the end of December 2019.

However, the investigation of the chairman of the board of directors was repeated in Hengfeng Bank. Cai Guohua, who "took over" Jiang Xiyun at the helm of the bank, was taken away for investigation on suspicion of serious violations of discipline and law. The corruption case of the chairman of the board of directors for two consecutive terms has had a serious impact on Hengfeng Bank, and the bank's non-performing loan ratio was as high as 28.44% by the end of 2018.

Since then, Hengfeng Bank has started the work of risk mitigation, reform and reorganization, and the "risk management trio" formed by the Shandong Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government has been parachuted into the bank to form a new leadership team. After research and demonstration, the Shandong Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government decided to adopt the "three-step" reform idea of "stripping non-performing banks, introducing war investment, and listing as a whole" for Hengfeng Bank. "By the end of 2019, with the arrival of strategic investment, the first two steps have been completed", in October 2020, Wang Xifeng, then president of Hengfeng Bank, revealed the progress of the bank's reform and put forward the goal of listing within five years.

However, since August 2022, Wang Xifeng, the former president of Hengfeng Bank, Zhang Shumin, the former chairman of the board of supervisors, and Chen Ying, the former chairman of Hengfeng Bank, have been transferred to other institutions.

In June 2023, the State Administration of Financial Supervision and Administration issued an announcement approving the qualifications of Xin Shuren, executive director and chairman of Hengfeng Bank. As the first member of the new leadership team of Hengfeng Bank, Xin Shuren was born in the People's Bank of China, has many years of experience in the financial system, and has served as the secretary of the party group and director of the Shandong Provincial Bureau of Statistics.

At present, Hengfeng Bank's goal of "listing within five years" "promised" in 2020 is still advancing. According to the 2024 bank-wide work conference, as of the end of 2023, Hengfeng Bank's non-performing loan ratio has declined for 20 consecutive quarters.

However, from the overall situation of domestic banking IPOs, it is not optimistic. Since December 2021, bank IPOs have effectively stalled. In the past two years or so, as of March 27, 2024, no bank has received listing approval.

Just one month before the 2024 bank-wide work conference, the "largest shareholder" of Hengfeng Bank changed, and the bank returned to the Shandong state-owned assets system. On February 23, 2024, Shandong Financial Asset Management Co., Ltd. acquired 15 billion shares of the bank held by Central Huijin Investment Co., Ltd., which has now been promoted to the largest shareholder of Hengfeng Bank.

Regarding the key work of operation and management in 2024, Hengfeng Bank also stated at this annual bank-wide work conference that "it is necessary to adhere to the principle of establishing first and then breaking down, and accelerate the adjustment of business structure". From the perspective of revenue growth, it will include "the income side should fully realize the transformation to customer comprehensive income", "incremental business should be fully tilted towards light capital and high returns", and "closely follow policy changes to tap potential customers and quickly develop financial products that best meet market demand".

Beijing News Shell Financial Reporter Huang Xinyu

Edited by Yue Caizhou

Proofread by Liu Baoqing