One of our favorite charts summarizing perfectly the Chinese credit bubble, better than any other, is the following which compares bank asset (i.e., loan) creation in China vs the US.
It goes without saying that while the blue line has troubles of its own (namely finding the proper rate of liquidity lubrication to keep over $600 trillion in derivatives from collapsing into an epic gross=net garbage heap), it is the red one, that of China, where $1 trillion in credit was created in the fourth quarter alone, that is clearly unsustainable for the simple reasons that i) China will quickly run out of encumbrable assets and ii) the bad, non-performing loan accumulation has hit an exponential phase, which incidentally is why Beijing is scrambling to slow down the “flow” from the current unprecedented pace of $3.5 trillion per year.
It is also because of this wanton and mindblowing capital misallocation (the de novo created debt goes not into profitable, cash flow generating ventures, but into fixed asset investments which create zero and potentially negative cash flow, due to China’s already epic overinvestment resulting in ghost cities, and building that fall down weeks after their erection) that China has finally decided to provide lenders with the other much needed component of the return equation: risk. This, in the form of debt defaults, something unheard of in China for two decades.
Which brings us to today, when we find that China’s credit formation, until now proceeding at a breakneck speed, has suddenly ground to a halt. Reuters explains:
Some of China’s struggling firms are finally getting the reception that regulators have been hoping for – a cold shoulder from banks in the form of smaller and costlier loans.
Reuters has contacted over 80 companies with elevated debt ratios or problems with overcapacity. Interviews with 15 that agreed to discuss their funding showed that more discriminate lending, long a missing ingredient of China’s economic transformation, has become a reality.
Up against a cooling Chinese economy and signs that authorities will not step in every time a loan goes bad, banks are becoming more hard-nosed and selective about whom they lend to.
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For household goods maker Elec-Tech International Co Ltd (002005.SZ), less credit is the new reality. Its bank cut its borrowing limit by 500 million yuan ($80.79 million) to no more than 2.5 billion yuan this year, said Zhang, an official at Elec-Tech’s securities department.
“Last year, the bank gave us a discount on our interest rates. This year, we probably won’t get any discount,” Zhang who declined to give his full name said. “It feels like banks are not lending and their checks are becoming more rigorous.”
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There are signs that even state-owned firms, in the past fawned over by lenders for their government connections, have to contend with higher rates, lower lending limits and more onerous checks by banks.
“Interest rates are going up 10 percent for the entire industry,” said Wang Lei, a finance department manager at PKU HealthCare Corp. “Obtaining loans is getting difficult and expensive.”
Here’s why PKU Healthcare will likely be among the first to experience what happens when the liquidity runs out:
PKU HealthCare, which is controlled by Peking University and makes bulk pharmaceuticals, has struggled to remain profitable. Its debt-to-EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) ratio exceeded 60 at the end of September, four times the average for listed Chinese companies from the sector.
