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外刊阅读|恒大之困:从房产帝国到中国经济的“债务炸弹”

2021-09-13 5728


恒大之困:从房产帝国到中国经济的“债务炸弹”

Why China’s Economy Is Threatened by a Property Giant’s Debt Problems


2021年9月13日

来源:纽约时报中文网


Every once in a while a company grows so big and messy that governments fear what would happen to the broader economy if it were to fail. In China, Evergrande, a sprawling real estate developer, is that company.

每隔一段时间,就有一家公司会发展到如此庞大和混乱的程度,以至于政府担心如果它倒闭了,这将给更广泛的经济带来怎样的影响。中国规模庞大的房地产开发商恒大集团就是这样一家公司。

Evergrande has the distinction of being the world’s most debt-saddled property developer and has been on life support for months. A steady drumbeat of bad news in recent weeks has accelerated what many experts warn is inevitable: failure.

让恒大与众不同的是,它是全球负债最多的房地产开发商,几个月来一直处于半死不活的状态。最近几周,接连不断的坏消息加速了许多专家警告的不可避免的结局——失败的到来。

The ratings agency Fitch said this week that default “appears probable.” Moody’s, another ratings agency, said Evergrande is out of cash and time. Evergrande is faced with more than $300 billion in debt, hundreds of unfinished residential buildings, and angry suppliers who have shut down construction sites. The company has even started to pay overdue bills by handing over unfinished properties.

信用评级机构惠誉(Fitch)上周表示,违约“看来是很有可能的”。另一家评级机构穆迪(Moody's)说,恒大的现金和时间都已用光。恒大面临的总债务超过3000亿美元,有数百个尚未完工的住宅楼项目,愤怒的供应商已停止了建筑工地的工作。恒大甚至已开始用移交未完成项目产权的方式来支付逾期账单。

Observers are watching to see if Chinese regulators make good on their pledge to clean up the country’s corporate sector by letting “debt bombs” like Evergrande collapse.

观察人士正在看中国监管者们是否会兑现他们清理国内企业的承诺,让恒大这种“债务炸弹”崩溃。

How did Evergrande become such a problem?

恒大是怎样成为这么大的问题的?

In its glory days a decade ago, Evergrande sold bottled water, owned China’s best professional soccer team and even briefly dabbled in pig farming. It became so big and sprawling that it even has a unit that makes electric cars, though it has delayed mass production.

在公司10年前的辉煌岁月,恒大曾卖过瓶装水,拥有中国最好的职业足球队,甚至曾短暂涉足养猪业。公司的业务变得如此之大、如此之广,它甚至拥有一个生产电动汽车的部门,尽管它已经推迟了大规模生产。

Today, Evergrande is seen as a rickety threat to China’s biggest banks.

如今,摇摇欲坠的恒大被认为是对中国几家最大银行的威胁。

The company, which was founded in 1996, rode China’s epic property boom that urbanized large swathes of the country and resulted in nearly three quarters of household wealth being tied up in housing. This put Evergrande at the center of power in an economy that came to lean on the property market for supercharged economic growth.

恒大成立于1996年,在中国房地产划时代的繁荣昌盛时期发展壮大起来,房地产业已将中国的大片地区城市化,让家庭近75%的财富与房产挂钩。这使得恒大成为中国经济的一支核心力量,中国经济曾依赖房地产市场来实现强劲的经济增长。

Its billionaire founder, Xu Jiayin, is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an elite group of politically well-connected advisers. Mr. Xu’s connections probably gave creditors more confidence to keep lending money to Evergrande as it grew and expanded into new businesses. Eventually, though, Evergrande ended up with more debt than it could pay off.

恒大创始人、亿万富翁许家印是中国人民政治协商会议委员,这是一个精英团体,由拥有良好政治人脉的顾问组成。许家印的人脉很可能让债权人更有信心在恒大发展和拓展新业务时不断贷款给它。不过,恒大最终背上的债务已超过其偿还能力。

In recent years, it has faced lawsuits from home buyers who are still waiting for the completion of apartments they partially paid for. Suppliers and creditors have claimed hundreds of billions of dollars in outstanding bills. Some have suspended construction on Evergrande projects.

近年来,恒大面临着来自购房者的诉讼,这些购房者仍在等待他们已经支付了部分房款的公寓完工。供应商和债权人向恒大索要数万亿元的未偿债务。有些公司已经暂停了恒大项目的建设。

Why is the company in so much trouble now?

恒大为什么现在有这么大的麻烦?

Evergrande might have been able to keep going if it weren’t for two problems. First, Chinese regulators are cracking down on the reckless borrowing habits of property developers. This has forced Evergrande to start selling off some of its sprawling business empire. That’s not going so well. It has yet to sell its electric vehicle business, despite talks with prospective buyers. Some experts say buyers are waiting for a fire sale.

如果没有下面两种情况出现,恒大也许还能继续发展下去。一是中国监管机构正在打击房地产开发商不计后果的借贷习惯。这已迫使恒大开始出售其庞大商业帝国的部分资产。出售进行得并不顺利。尽管正在与潜在买家谈判,恒大还没有为其电动汽车业务找到买家。一些专家说,买家正在等待低价抛售。

Second, China’s property market is slowing and there is less demand for new apartments. This week the National Institution for Finance and Development, a prominent Beijing think tank, declared the property market boom “has shown signs of a turning point,” citing weak demand and slowing sales data.

二是中国房地产市场正在放缓,对新公寓的需求正在减少。上周,北京一家知名智库国家金融与发展实验室(National Institution for Finance and Development)指出,数据显示需求疲软和销售放缓,房地产市场的繁荣“出现拐点信号”。

Much of the cash that Evergrande has been able to drum up has come from presold apartments that aren’t yet completed. Evergrande has nearly 800 projects across China that are unfinished, and as many as 1.2 million people who are still waiting to move into their new homes, according to research from REDD Intelligence.

恒大能够筹集到的资金有很大一部分来自尚未完工的预售公寓。据REDD Intelligence的研究,恒大在中国有近800个未完工项目,多达120万人仍在等待搬进新家。

Evergrande has slashed prices on new apartments but even that has failed to entice new buyers. In August it made a quarter fewer sales than it did a year ago.

恒大已经大幅下调了新公寓的价格,尽管如此,它也未能吸引到新买家。恒大今年8月的销售额与去年同期相比降低了25%。

Will Chinese regulators step in to save it?

中国监管者会出手拯救恒大吗?

Beijing will be tempted to say “no,” but a collapse could cause serious damage, leaving homeowners, suppliers and domestic investors — potentially numbering in the millions — unhappy. And Beijing has ultimately moved to shore up other large companies with big problems in the past.

中国政府很可能会说“不”,但让恒大倒闭可能会带来严重损害,让数量可能高达百万的房主、供应商和国内投资者感到不满。而且,政府以前曾最终采取行动拯救了其他有严重问题的大企业。

For years many investors gave money to companies like Evergrande because they believed that, at the end of the day, Beijing would always step in to rescue it if things got too shaky. And for decades, the investors have been right. But over the past several years, the authorities have shown greater willingness to let companies fail in order to rein in China’s unsustainable debt problem.

多年来,许多投资者把钱投给恒大这种公司,是因为他们相信,如果事情最终变得太不稳定,政府总会出手拯救。几十年来,投资者的看法一直没出错过。但在过去几年里,中国当局已表现出让企业倒闭的更大意愿,以遏制中国不可持续的债务问题。

The authorities hauled Evergrande executives into a meeting last month and told them to get its debt in order. They have also continued to tell its banks to scale back their lending to the developer.

当局已在上月约谈了恒大高管,要求他们管理好债务问题。政府还继续要求银行减少对这家开发商的贷款。

How would Evergrande’s failure affect China’s economy?

恒大倒闭将对中国经济造成怎样的影响?

A campaign by the central bank to tame property debt and reduce the banking sector’s exposure to troubled developers should mean that an Evergrande failure would have less of an impact on China’s financial system.

中国央行正在努力控制房地产债务,降低陷入困境的开发商给银行业带来的风险,这应该意味着恒大破产对中国金融体系的影响将会较小。

The reality may be more complicated.

实际情况可能更复杂。

Panic from investors and home buyers could spill over into the property market and hit prices, affecting household wealth and confidence. It could also shake global financial markets and make it harder for other Chinese companies to continue to finance their businesses with foreign investment. Writing in The Financial Times last week, the billionaire investor George Soros warned that an Evergrande default could cause China’s economy to crash.

投资者和购房者的恐慌可能会蔓延到房地产市场,打击房价,影响家庭财富和信心。恒大倒闭也可能动摇全球金融市场,使其他中国企业更难继续利用外国投资为其业务融资。亿万富翁投资者乔治·索罗斯(George Soros)上上周在《金融时报》撰文警告,恒大违约可能导致中国的经济崩溃。

Chen Zhiwu, a professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong, said a failure could result in a credit crunch for the entire economy as financial institutions become more risk averse. An Evergrande failure, he added, was “not good news to the financial system or the overall economy.”

香港大学金融学教授陈志武说,恒大破产可能会导致整个经济出现信贷紧缩,因为金融机构会变得更不愿冒险。他还表示,恒大的破产“对金融体系或整体经济来说都不是好消息”。

Not everyone is as pessimistic. Bruce Pang, an economist at China Renaissance Securities, said a default could lay the groundwork for a healthier economy in the future. “If Evergrande were to fail with the fading belief of ‘too big to fail,’ it will prove Beijing’s more tolerance for defaults despite pains and disruption in the short term,” said Mr. Pang.

并非所有人都如此悲观。华兴证券经济学家庞溟说,让恒大违约会为未来更健康的经济奠定基础。“如果恒大倒闭会让‘大到不能倒’的信念淡化,那将证明北京对违约的容忍度提高了,尽管会有短期的阵痛和混乱,”庞溟说。

Should foreign investors be concerned?

外国投资者应该担心吗?

Foreign investors are owed $7.4 billion in bond payments from Evergrande next year alone. At various points this year they have panicked, sending trading of the bonds in the secondary market to new depths. Over the past week, Evergrande bond notes were going for 50 cents on the dollar. Trading in its debt was so frenzied at one point that regulators briefly put a stop to trading.

仅明年一年,恒大就需要偿付外国投资者74亿美元的债券。外国投资者已在今年的几个时间点上出现了恐慌,将恒大债券在二级市场的交易价推向新低。过去一周,面值一美元的恒大债券交易价只有50美分。它的债券交易一度曾如此疯狂,以至于监管者短暂停止了交易。

The company’s main share listing in Hong Kong has lost more than three-quarters of its value over the past year.

恒大在香港上市的主要股票的价格已在过去一年缩水了逾75%。

The foreign investors are worried that if Evergrande fails, all the money they are owed will vanish into thin air. The authorities in Beijing have indicated that they are no longer willing to bail out foreign and domestic bondholders. In any bankruptcy proceeding, they would be low on the list of creditors to get any of the Chinese company’s assets.

外国投资者担心,如果恒大破产,恒大欠他们的所有钱将化为乌有。北京当局已表示,不再愿意帮助国内外的债券持有者。在任何破产程序中,债券持有者在有权索要这家中国公司资产的债权人名单上都排在靠后的位置。