全球第一的工商銀行

Big is bewitching. Before the crunch, the sheer size of some institutions was an encumbrance to rational analysis. As Chuck Prince or Sir Fred Goodwin celebrated double-digit growth in assets, few observers – least of all the respective boards of Citigroup and Royal Bank of Scotland – had the wit or inclination to mine reams of data for structural flaws.

做大是一件令人着迷的事情。金融危機之前，一些機構龐大的規模妨礙了理性分析。當查克·普林斯(Chuck Prince)和弗雷德·古德溫爵士(Sir Fred Goodwin)爲兩位數的資產增長歡慶之際，罕有觀察傢俱有那種頭腦或意願，從大量數據中尋找結構性缺陷——花旗(Citigroup)和蘇格蘭皇家銀行(Royal Bank of Scotland)的分析師們尤其如此。

What, then, to make of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, now the world's biggest bank by any metric you care to mention? No other lender comes close to the bank's net income of $5.2bn in the first quarter. Deposits of about $1,400bn have nudged past Japan's MUFG and JPMorgan, the bank said last week. Market capitalisation? A whisker away from $200bn. That's 60 per cent bigger than the nearest US outfit (JPMorgan), and 11 times bigger than Citi.
那麼，該如何看待中國工商銀行(ICBC)呢？無論以何種尺度衡量，它都是全球第一大銀行。該行一季度實現淨利潤52億美元，沒有哪家銀行堪與比肩。工行上週表示，其存款規模約爲1.4萬億美元，略高於摩根大通(JPMorgan)和日本的三菱UFJ金融集團(MUFG)。市值情況呢？距2000億美元僅咫尺之遙，比位居次席的美國銀行（摩根大通)高出60%，比花旗高出11倍。

But while things seem tickety-boo on the surface – non-performing loans actually fell 2 per cent from the fourth quarter – trouble surely awaits. ICBC almost quadrupled loan volumes in the first quarter, year on year; number two, China Construction Bank, merely tripled them, while at Bank of China they doubled. Similar state-directed lending splurges in the 1990s left companies laden with capital equipment they barely needed, and too much debt. On Deutsche Bank estimates, China's stimulus actually needs less than $150bn of annual lending. ICBC supplied two-thirds of that in the first quarter alone. Loan growth is outpacing deposit growth by about 2.5 to 1.
雖然從表面上看，形勢一片大好——工行的不良貸款率較去年第四季度實際下降了2%——但未來肯定會有麻煩。工行第一季度的貸款額接近去年同期的4倍；國內第二大銀行——中國建設銀行僅爲去年同期的3倍，而中國銀行則爲2倍。上世紀90年代同樣在國家指令下出現的信貸潮，曾令企業揹負了大量基本不需要的資本設備，出現了過高負債。德意志銀行(Deutsche Bank)估計，中國的經濟刺激計劃所需的年貸款額實際上低於1500億美元。工行僅在第一季度就提供了其中的三分之二。貸款與存款的增長率之比爲 2.5:1。

Still, China's loan-classification system gives lenders an unusually long period of grace before recognising losses. And the equity valuation is no great stretch: on just over 10 times next year's earnings, it is inexpensive both against Asian peers and its historical levels. While faith in China's ability to spend its way out of a slump endures, so should ICBC's grip on the top spot – however many bogeymen are lurking.
儘管如此，在中國的貸款分級制度下，銀行在承認虧損前能享受一段長得超乎尋常的寬限期。與此同時，工行的股票估值也並不過分：僅略高於預期收益10倍，與其歷史水平及亞洲同行相比，都可謂廉價。無論有多少“妖魔”潛伏其中，只要對於中國能夠依靠投資擺脫衰退的信念不變，工行的排名就不會動搖。