Securities Times reporter Ma Chuanmao
Here, the Bank of Lanzhou, which has been waiting for 5 years, has successfully passed the meeting, and the number of A-share listed banks is about to increase to 42; on that side, the queue of banks to be listed is still continuing to lengthen.
The Securities Times reporter learned that inner Mongolia Jingu Rural Commercial Bank has recently signed an A-share listing counseling agreement with CITIC Securities. In addition, Rizhao Bank and Fujian Strait Bank have also completed the bidding for the selection of IPO sponsors in April and July this year, and CITIC Securities and Industrial Securities have become the only winning bidders, but neither bank has completed the listing counseling filing at the local securities regulatory bureau.
In fact, CITIC Securities is also the sponsoring securities firm with the largest number of bank IPO projects in the queue and on record, followed by CITIC Construction Investment Securities. Among the 25 banks that have completed A-share listings since 2016, CITIC Construction Investment has won a total of 8 projects, ranking first in the list.
Many bankers interviewed said that when selecting a listed sponsor, the most important thing is whether it has experience in counseling banks to pass the meeting. "In recent years, CITIC Securities and CITIC Construction Investment Securities have many projects that have been listed on the market, and they are more favored by the banks to be listed. Some banks also consider issues such as geography or service radius, choose local brokers, or make final decisions based on underwriting rates and service teams. A senior bodyguard said.
The two giants take a big share
According to the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, on September 9, the initial offering of Lanzhou Bank was officially approved, and the northwest city commercial bank that has been waiting for more than 5 years is about to become the 42nd listed bank in A-shares.
Bank of Lanzhou will also become the 10th bank listed by CITIC Construction Investment. According to statistics, after the reopening of the A-share listing of small and medium-sized banks in 2016, a total of 8 of the 25 banks that have completed the listing are independently sponsored by CITIC Construction Investment.
At present, among the banks receiving counseling from CITIC Construction Investment, in addition to the Bank of Lanzhou, which has successfully passed the meeting, Xiamen Rural Commercial Bank and Jiangsu Kunshan Rural Commercial Bank are in the state of "pre-disclosure and update", while Beijing Rural Commercial Bank, Hangzhou United Rural Commercial Bank and Jiangsu Jiangnan Rural Commercial Bank are all in the counseling.
Prior to this, CITIC Construction Investment's debut in the bank's A-share IPO project was Bank of Beijing. In September 2007, Bank of Beijing was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and jointly sponsored by CITIC Construction Investment and CITIC Securities.
It is precisely because of the outstanding performance of counseling the listing of Bank of Beijing that the sponsorship ability of CITIC Construction Investment has attracted the attention of small and medium-sized banks in some localities, and Changshu Bank and Guiyang Bank signed a listing counseling agreement with them in the second half of 2007. After the bank listing reopened in 2016, CITIC Construction Investment also entered the "harvest period".
Overall, most of the bank IPO projects counseled by CITIC Construction Investment are concentrated in developed coastal areas, and the listing locations are mainly on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
CITIC Securities was the sole sponsor of SPDB's listing, and since then CITIC Securities has participated in the A-share listing sponsorship of the five state-owned banks, and also sponsored the Bank of Nanjing and the Bank of Beijing in 2007, and has also received many orders since then. Among the A-share banks listed after 2016, Changsha Bank, Bank of Qingdao, Bank of Xi'an and Zheshang Bank were all listed under the guidance of CITIC Securities.
At the same time, CITIC Securities has more reserve projects. Among them, Ma'anshan Rural Commercial Bank is currently in the state of listing queue, and 6 banks such as Huishang Bank, Hebei Bank, Hubei Bank and Bank of Tianjin are in the process of counseling.
According to the Securities Times reporter, CITIC Securities also won the bid for the IPO sponsorship projects of Shandong Liaocheng Rural Commercial Bank and Rizhao Bank in June last year and April this year, and recently signed an A-share listing counseling agreement with Inner Mongolia Jingu Rural Commercial Bank.
In addition to sufficient project reserves, the above two securities companies also have a number of star insurance agents in the bank's IPO project. Taking Chang Liang of CITIC Construction Investment as an example, he participated in the IPO projects of ICBC and Bank of Nanjing in his early years, and then tutored Changshu Bank, Zijin Bank and Qilu Bank to go public, and also participated in projects such as Wuxi Bank, Xiamen Bank, Ruifeng Bank, xiamen Rural Commercial Bank and so on as one of the project managers. In addition, the Kunshan Rural Commercial Bank in the queue and the Hangzhou United Rural Commercial Bank, which has completed the counseling and filing, are all sponsored by him.
Sponsorship experience is most valued
According to the statistics of the 30 banks to be listed that have completed the filing or have been reported for approval, in addition to CITIC Securities and CITIC Construction Investment, which have won 7 and 6 respectively, covering most of the market share, the number of CICC, Guotai Junan Securities and China Merchants Securities Reserves is also 4, 3 and 2 respectively.
Among them, those in the queue for listing include Guangdong Shunde Rural Commercial Bank and Huzhou Bank, which are being counseled by CICC; Guangdong Nanhai Rural Commercial Bank and Bank of Guangzhou, which are counseled by Guotai Junan; jiangsu Dafeng Rural Commercial Bank and Dongguan Bank, which are counseled by China Merchants Securities. Among the banks that have completed A-share listings since 2016, CICC, Guotai Junan and China Merchants Securities have also participated in 3, 2 and 4 projects respectively.
"Experience is definitely the first." An executive of a newly listed bank told the Securities Times reporter that in his view, listing is a process from 0 to 1, "in this process, directors and supervisors, key positions need training, corporate governance, equity and asset confirmation these need counseling, listing progress, regulatory feedback should also be well grasped, we will be more assured of sponsor institutions that have successful experience." ”
In addition, some securities companies have been supported by local small and medium-sized banks based on local resource advantages, and then signed counseling agreements. For example, the listing project of Wuhu Yangzi Rural Commercial Bank was counseled by the local Guoyuan Securities, which also participated in the A-share listing counseling project for Huishang Bank.
Similarly, in the bidding for the selection of IPO sponsors completed by Fujian Strait Bank in July this year, Industrial Securities, which is also located in Fujian, became the only winning bidder. It is understood that the project has two winning candidates - Industrial Securities and China Merchants Securities, and the bidding quotations of the sponsorship underwriting rates of the two companies are 0.35% and 0.6% respectively.
"We are still doing some preparatory work in the early stage of listing, and we have not yet started bidding for sponsoring institutions, but the meaning of the regulatory authorities is also to see if we can support local securities companies with strength." The secretary of the board of directors of a 100-billion-level city commercial bank revealed to the Securities Times reporter.
It is worth noting that although many banks have not yet completed the listing counseling filing at the local securities regulatory bureau, the listing targets have been shouted out in advance, including Chang'an Bank, Fudian Bank, Quanzhou Bank, Ganzhou Bank, Guilin Bank, Beibu Gulf Bank, etc., and Tianjin Rural Commercial Bank proposed "listing within 5 years" at the mid-year work conference held in July.
Local governments are also quite active. Wuhan's implementation plan for building a regional financial center issued in June this year proposes to "promote the landing of Hubei Bank, Hankou Bank, Wuhan Rural Commercial Bank, etc. in the capital market"; Guangdong Province, in the "14th Five-Year Plan" for financial reform and development issued in early August, stressed that it is necessary to accelerate the listing of high-quality rural commercial banks such as Bank of Guangzhou, Dongguan Bank and Dongguan, Shunde, Nanhai, Foshan, Zhongshan and Jiangmen, and the return of Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank to A-shares.
When is the "run" up?
While the queue of banks to be listed continues to lengthen and the sponsoring institutions seize the market, it cannot be ignored that the "runner" may not necessarily "accompany the runner" to the end of the listing.
According to the Liaoning Securities Regulatory Bureau, due to the decision of the provincial party committee and the provincial government on the overall reform of the city commercial banks in the province since the beginning of the year, in June this year, Yingkou Bank and BOCI Securities decided to terminate the counseling work that had been carried out for more than four years and apply for the cancellation of the listing counseling filing.
In addition, Tianjin Binhai Rural Commercial Bank signed a counseling agreement with Credit Suisse Founder Securities in early 2011, but due to the adjustment of the bank's development strategy, the two sides negotiated in May 2019 to terminate the counseling.
At the end of 2019, Bank of Jinzhou also terminated the listing counseling agreement with Zheshang Securities and revoked the filing, on the grounds that "there have been major changes in the directors and operating performance of the bank". It is worth mentioning that Bank of Jinzhou began to accept counseling from Dongxing Securities in April 2016, and suddenly replaced the sponsoring institution at the end of 2018 and accepted counseling from Zheshang Securities instead.
In addition to Bank of Jinzhou, Chongqing Three Gorges Bank also announced in December 2018 that it terminated its listing counseling agreement with China Merchants Securities and instead accepted counseling from China Galaxy Securities.
Public information shows that many of the banks that have completed the filing of counseling have been "running" with the sponsoring institution for ten years. For example, Hankou Bank, which signed a counseling agreement with Haitong Securities at the end of 2010, is still in the process of counseling; CITIC Securities also signed counseling agreements with Luoyang Bank and Hebei Bank in the fourth quarter of 2011, and is currently in counseling.
As a "runner", the sponsoring institution not only has to take the bank to the "runway", but also the refinancing project after the bank is listed usually chooses to continue to "accompany the run" by the familiar "old partner".
Overall, whether it is convertible bonds, rights issues or private placements, most of the bank refinancing projects listed since 2016 have been spent on their respective IPO sponsors.
Of course, individual banks also choose to contact other brokers to "escort" their refinancing projects. "After the listing, our corporate governance is relatively standardized, the departments involved in refinancing have undergone the listing 'baptism', and have also established relatively close ties with the same industry circle, and they will consider more when choosing the sponsoring institution of the refinancing project, and may meet our needs at a certain point, and the project will be given to them." A head of the refinancing department of a listed bank said.
Jiang Yunming, chairman of the supervisory board of Industrial Bank, also revealed at the bank's interim performance briefing that when the bank selects the sponsor of the convertible bond project, it attaches the greatest importance to the sponsor institution's professional opinion on the market value management after the issuance of the convertible bond, "This is the pain point of the bank's issuance of convertible bonds, because only if the PB reaches 1.3 times can it be forced to transfer shares." ”
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