银监会启动消费金融公司试点审批

银监会近日对外发布了《消费金融公司试点管理办法》（以下简称《试点办法》）,启动消费金融公司试点审批工作。     

股指期货＂破茧＂

“融资融券业务试点和股指期货已获国务院原则同意!”2010年1月8日晚间,一则来自中国证监会网站的重磅消息让刚刚从新年首个交易周稍歇的股民,再次躁动起来。     

ARE PROJECT FINANCE LOANS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER SYNDICATED CREDITS?

This paper provides the first full-length empirical analysis of project finance, which is defined as "limited or non-recourse financing of a newly to be developed project through the establishment of a vehicle company." The article compares the characteristics of a sample of 4,956 project finance loans (worth $634 billion) to comparable samples of non-project finance loans, all of which are drawn from a comprehensive sample of 90,784 syndicated loans (worth $13.2 trillion) booked on international capital markets since 1980.
The authors find that project finance (PF) loans differ significantly from non-project finance loans in that PF loans have a longer average maturity, are more likely to have third-party guarantees, and are far more likely to be extended to non-U.S. borrowers and to borrowers in riskier countries. Project finance credits also involve more participating banks, have fewer loan covenants, are more likely to use fixed-rate rather than floating-rate loan pricing, and are more likely to be extended to borrowers in tangible-asset-rich industries, such as real estate and electric utilities. Despite being nonrecourse finance, floating-rate project finance loans have lower credit spreads (over LIBOR) than do most comparable non-PF loans. The authors also report that projects funded with PF loans are heavily leveraged, with an average loan to value ratio of 67%.     

MERTON MILLER'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN FINANCE

Winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in Economics, and widely regarded as the “father of modern finance,” the University of Chicago's Merton Miller died last June at age 77. This article attempts to sum up Miller's career in terms of a single governing principle: the role of arbitrage in ensuring the “efficiency” of financial markets and, more generally, the effectiveness of such markets in promoting economic growth and creating social wealth. Starting with the formulation of Proposition I (also known as the capital structure irrelevance proposition) with Franco Modigliani in 1958, Miller's research over the next 40 years is seen as applying—with remarkable clarity and consistency—the principle of arbitrage to the study of many aspects of financial markets. Miller's main accomplishment, according to the author, is to have made arbitrage arguments the cornerstone of modern finance. The arbitrage proof of Proposition I introduced a new standard in finance—namely, that any finding in financial research deserving serious consideration must have the critical property that it cannot represent opportunities for riskless profit by investors. And the article goes on to show that arbitrage is a constant theme in Miller's writings, from his work in corporate finance to his later studies of financial innovation, derivatives markets, and financial crashes and crises. Having started and presided over the transformation of financial studies from a “glorified apprenticeship system” into a scientific discipline, Miller devoted much of the last 15 years of his life to a different, though clearly related undertaking: the defense of financial markets against the attacks of politicians and regulators, as well as businessmen intent on stifling competition (including hostile takeovers). Whether it was the alleged role of the stock index futures markets in the 1987 market crash, the claims of “overleveraging” in the LBOs of the '80s, or the derivatives fiascos in the mid‐'90s, Miller was there to provide careful economic analysis of the problems. In the early '90s, he explained why the “myopia” of the U.S. stock market was likely to cause far fewer problems than the “hyperopia” induced by regulatory distortions of the Japanese market. And in one of his last speeches, Miller showed that the primary cause of the recent Asian crisis was not “too much reliance on financial markets,” as claimed by politicians and the popular press, but “too little”—in particular, the heavy dependence on bank financing (particularly state‐owned banks) and the failure to develop alternative sources of capital that continue to depress the Japanese economy.     

INVESTORS' DIFFERENTIAL RESPONSE TO MANAGED FUND PERFORMANCE

Several studies measuring the flow of monies into and out of U.S. mutual funds note a convexity in the performance‐flow relation and offer several explanations for the apparent investor insensitivity to poor performance. In this study investor response to past performance is measured in a different setting: the Australian wholesale funds market. The results confirm that, like the U.S. mutual fund investor, institutional investors in Australia react to recent performance. However, a similar response asymmetry is not detected in most tests. Evidence that small, young funds are potential drivers of the asymmetric response effect is also provided. JEL classification: G10, G14     

PETROZUATA: A CASE STUDY OF THE EFFECTIVE USE OF PROJECT FINANCE

Companies are increasingly using project finance to fund large-scale capital expenditures. In fact, private companies invested $96 billion in project finance deals in 1998, down from $119 billion in 1997 largely due to the Asian crisis, but up more than threefold since 1994. The decision to use project finance involves an explicit choice of organizational form as well as financial structure. With project finance, sponsoring firms create legally distinct entities to develop, manage, and finance the project. These entities borrow on a limited or non-recourse basis, which means that loan repayment depends on the project's cash flows rather than on the assets or general credit of the sponsoring organizations. Despite the non-recourse nature of project borrowing, projects are highly leveraged entities, with debt to total capitalization ratios averaging 60–70%. Petrozuata, a $2.4 billion oil field development project in Venezuela, is a recent example of the effective use of project finance for several reasons. First, the analysis shows a typical setting where project finance is likely to create value, that of a large-scale investment in Greenfield assets (in this case, wells, pipelines, and upgrader) that can function as a stand-alone economic entity and support a high leverage ratio. Given the nature of this investment, one can think of project finance as venture capital for fixed assets, except that the investments are 100 to 1000 times larger and financed primarily with debt rather than equity. Besides highlighting the types of assets appropriate for project finance, this article illustrates the sizeable transactions costs associated with structuring a deal as well as the full range of benefits accruing to project sponsors. The structure allows sponsors to capture tax benefits not otherwise available, reduces information costs for creditors and other investors, and lowers the overall cost of financial distress. The combination of high leverage, concentrated equity ownership, and direct control in project finance also addresses a wide range of incentive problems that destroy value in diversified companies. Analysis of the explicit contractual terms of the deal reveals a careful allocation of project risks in an attempt to elicit optimal behavior by each of the participants. As illustrated in the Petrozuata case, limiting completion and operating risks are important undertakings. But project finance is most valuable as an instrument for managing sovereign risks. Indeed, the ability of project finance to limit sovereign risk is the one feature that cannot be replicated under conventional corporate financing schemes.     

释放金融活力建设美丽三秦——访陕西银监局局长凌敢

站在新的历史起点上,陕西银监局将认真贯彻落实国务院金十条的要求,按照盘活存量,优化增量,支持经济结构调整和转型升级的原则,引导银行业机构实现五个倾斜,加快金融创新,加强金融服务,加大资金支持,为三个陕西建设提供全方位、多层次、高质效的金融支撑。     

改革农村金融，解三农之需

未来的农村金融市场必将出现投资主体多元化、竞争主体多元化、农村资金供给不断增加、农户资金需求得到更好满足的良好局面。     

增强金融对经济的服务功能——2010元旦献词

2010年的钟声响起,我们以新中国建立60周年的丰功伟绩辞别了2009年,满怀胜利的喜悦和奋进的豪情迎来了又一个新年。金融是现代经济的核心,做好今年的金融工作,对夺取应对国际金融危机冲击全面胜利、保持经济平稳较快发展、为“十二五”规划实施奠定良好基础具有十分重要的意义。