China Economic Weekly WeChat: ChinaEconomicWeekly
China Economic Weekly official website: Economic Network www.ceweekly.cn
Ge Feng, special commentator of China Economic Weekly
(This article was published in China Economic Weekly, No. 48, 2017)
At the end of the year, a number of executives from the Securities Regulatory Commission and the stock exchange intensively stated that they would focus on promoting the reform of the stock market delisting system in the coming period. The market expects that this reform task is expected to make substantial progress next year.
The most important function of the capital market is to cultivate and support the development and growth of excellent enterprises, and a market that cannot achieve "survival of the fittest" is bound to be difficult to promote "excellence". Previously, China's A-share market has long implemented almost the most stringent issuance and review procedures in the world, but the overall quality of A-share listed companies is far from reaching the expected level under the layers of "preferential selection", and the performance of the stock market is even more seriously deviated from the rapid development of China's economy in the same period. This lack is reflected in the phenomenon level, and the obvious example is that only more than 100 listed companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets have been delisted for various reasons, accounting for only about 3% of all listed companies, while the proportion of listed companies delisted in overseas stock markets is as high as 10% to 20% per year.
There may be some "stock market stability maintenance factions" that in the A-share market, which seriously lacks internal stability, it is not appropriate to implement the delisting system too strictly (at least not too quickly), but the problem is that in a highly unified market, "survival of the inferior" and "winning" have always been inseparable sides of the coin. The blockage of the "export" of the A-share market will inevitably eventually affect the smooth flow of the "entrance" through layers of transmission, and it is difficult to continuously provide enough high-quality investment targets, so that investors have long been keen on "speculating on small", "speculating on concepts", "speculating on stories", "speculating on poor performance" and "speculating on restructuring", is not it one of the reasons for the serious lack of inherent stability in the A-share market?
Without "survival of the inferior", it is difficult to "win", and the inevitability between the two is reflected through a variety of conduction mechanisms, and the specific analysis is as follows:
First of all, given the total amount of resources, the zombie enterprise that has not retreated not only seriously reduces the overall efficiency of listed companies, but also squeezes out a large number of opportunities for enterprises representing the direction of industrial upgrading to obtain necessary financial support.
Secondly, even in the incremental capital market, due to the lack of strict constraints on the delisting link, it will inevitably incentivize many enterprises that do not meet the listing requirements to risk "rushing through the customs", so take a step back, even if these layers of disguised "unqualified" enterprises can be eliminated in the review process, but the constraints of the follow-up link are not effective, it will also gradually lead to the original "qualified" enterprises that meet the listing standards, neglecting to maintain or improve their performance.
Third, if you want to solve the above performance "face change" problem at the "entrance" end, the basic idea is nothing more than two, that is, either to further tighten the listing channel, or to substantively move towards the reform of the registration system, but these two ideas are difficult to implement in place in the case of a weak delisting system, because the former is likely to further promote the speculation of "shell resources", and the latter must be premised on a strict delisting system.
Finally, to say that the delisting system is soft and loose, it is actually reflected in the rigid payment of the stock market. This kind of rigid payment, like the rigid payment of other financial markets, fundamentally destroys the risk pricing system on which the financial system relies for normal operation, so it is impossible to talk about the effective allocation of financial resources without breaking all kinds of rigid payments. This is the current improvement of China's financial and even the overall economic efficiency, and no matter what, it cannot be bypassed.