Xu Xiaoru / watchmaker Zhai Chao / Cartography

Xu Xiaoru, a reporter from the Securities Times

Many listed companies, which originally used idle funds to buy bank financial management, began to turn their attention to the private equity market and frequently subscribed for private equity products.

So far this year, 24 listed companies have disclosed that they have subscribed for 34 private equity products, totaling 2.147 billion yuan. It is worth noting that quantitative products are also favored by listed companies this year. For example, Sunshine Lighting plans to buy magic square quantized index enhancement products for no more than 300 million yuan.

However, compared with overseas listed companies' allocation of bond funds and stock products, domestic listed companies are still in the test stage. A person in charge of private equity firms told the Securities Times that domestic listed companies still need time to accept the net transformation of financial management, and the purchase of private equity products may become a trend in the future.

The subscription amount is up to 2.147 billion.

In the past few years, with the enhancement of the profitability of listed companies, many companies have accumulated a large amount of monetary funds on their books. In order to improve the efficiency of the use of idle funds, listed companies initially meet the needs of cash management through the allocation of structural deposits and bank financial management, and the fixed income allocation needs of enterprises support the great-leap-forward development of bank financial management from 0 to 20 trillion.

However, with the tightening of regulation and the breaking of rigid exchange, the return-to-risk ratio of traditional wealth management products is declining day by day, superimposed by the current structural bull market environment, the attractiveness of investment returns in the secondary market has greatly increased.

Since the beginning of this year, a number of listed companies, such as Sunshine Lighting, Wenfeng shares, Yangyuan drinks, Fu Anna, Huamao shares and so on, have begun to subscribe for private placement products on a large scale. As of November 1, according to the statistics of the Securities Times, 24 listed companies have announced that they have subscribed for 34 private equity products, with a total amount of 2.147 billion yuan.

Among them, due to stable performance and relatively small fluctuations, quantitative products and fixed products are favored by listed companies. On October 13th, Sunshine Lighting plans to buy Magic Square Quantification 500 Index enhanced Happy 18 Private Securities Investment Fund with no more than 300 million yuan; on July 15, Ke Li Sensor subscribed for Lingjun to invest 30 million yuan; on January 22nd, Fuana spent 150 million yuan to subscribe for Xuanyuan investment.

In terms of bond funds, in July and August this year, Gu Family Home and Yangyuan Beverage heavily subscribed to the 10 billion bond private equity Mingyi Fund, buying 100 million yuan and 200 million yuan of Mingyi products respectively, while Shoupu assets were subscribed for 200 million yuan by Wenfeng shares. In terms of subjective investment, Yongji shares spent 200 million yuan to subscribe for Hawthorn tree investment, other subscription amount is not large, which may be related to the volatility of subjective stock products.

A person in charge of a 10 billion private equity firm in Shanghai told the Securities Times that in order to improve the efficiency of the use of funds, it was more common for listed companies to allocate fixed income products, including large certificates of deposit, and more to buy bank wealth management and public offering products, while relatively few bought private equity products. On the one hand, listed companies need to accept the trend of net worth transformation of bank financial management, on the other hand, they should also recognize the management ability of excellent private equity managers. It's just that private placement does not have the advantage of license endorsement, so it will take some time for listed companies to accept it.

"if listed companies do not really recognize the investment concept of private placement, it is also very difficult for customers to maintain, including talking about conditions, special services, etc., the performance-to-price ratio is not very high. And at the time of redemption, almost all of them are redeemed at one time, so at present we do not put much energy into marketing. " A person in charge of a large private equity company in Beijing told reporters.

As for the phenomenon that more and more listed companies buy private equity products, Rong Hao, a wealth management partner of Private Placement Network, said that at present, private equity strategies are becoming more and more abundant, involving a wide range of investments. products with different risk-to-income ratios can be derived to meet the customized needs of customers, resulting in an increasing number of private equity products purchased by listed companies. Listed companies can use idle funds to expand financial channels and obtain non-business income to improve financial statements, so as to achieve horizontal or vertical development on the basis of the original industry.

Rong Hao believes that the purchase of private placement by listed companies has three main characteristics: first, the private equity managers chosen by each company have a low degree of overlap, which may be related to the different channels of resources around them; second, the managers selected by a single listed company are more concentrated, most of them choose a heavy warehouse of one manager's products, and a few are scattered to two or three. Third, the amount of single subscription is relatively large, tens of millions of yuan is the starting threshold, and it is not uncommon for a single purchase to exceed 100 million yuan.

In addition, Rong Hao said that many listed companies sell for hundreds of millions of yuan. first, the capital attributes of listed companies belong to the type of relatively fixed term and relatively controlled risk preference, and the manager's style needs to meet the requirements; second, the internal decision-making process is long and prudent, so that in the end, not too many products will be demonstrated and followed at the same time.

Buy private equity products

It is still in the stage of testing the water.

Compared with overseas listed companies' allocation of bond funds and stock products, domestic listed companies are still in the test stage.

According to the latest financial data, technology companies with strong cash flow, such as Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc-CL C and Facebook, have directly bought bond portfolios of up to $122 billion, $169 billion, $113.2 billion and $43.6 billion respectively; the scale of equity investment is $7 billion, $0, $31.9 billion and $6.7 billion, respectively, and the total amount of money to buy bonds and stocks reached $493.4 billion.

It is understood that the cash management products provided by asset management giant Blackrock to corporate clients (mainly invested in bonds) account for nearly 10% of the scale of management. Goldman Sachs Group has also changed the strategy of institutional business serving active hedge fund clients, starting to provide stable cash management products to large asset managers, banks and corporate clients, increasing penetration in this area.

Industry insiders predict that with the end of the transition period of the new domestic asset management regulations at the end of 2021, more and more listed companies in China will gradually take bond funds and stock private equity products as an alternative to bank financial management in the past and incorporate them into their cash management portfolios.

Mingyi Fund, a private equity firm with a scale of 10 billion yuan, believes that stocks and bonds are the basic products for investors to allocate assets, but their very different risk-return characteristics meet the completely different allocation needs of investors. As far as listed companies are concerned, the allocation of idle monetary funds to stocks or bonds depends more on the demand for asset allocation and risk preference, and it is appropriate to allocate stocks if they pursue rapid appreciation, high risk preference and can accept high fluctuations; if they pursue asset preservation and appreciation, risk preference is low, and pay attention to liquidity management needs, it is appropriate to allocate bond funds. In the long run, listed companies have a strong demand for the preservation and appreciation of idle funds and liquidity management, so the long-term allocation value of bond funds is very great.

However, the head of a 10 billion-scale quantitative private equity firm in the south told the Securities Times that domestic listed companies still need time to accept the net transformation of financial management, and will not immediately become an important buying force. Buying private equity products may become a trend in the future, but how long it will take is uncertain.

In addition, Mingyi Fund said that listed companies have focused main businesses, and it is not appropriate for idle funds to pursue high returns in securities markets with high risk and volatility; the investment of idle funds is more suitable to maintain a low risk preference, pay attention to liquidity management and achieve relatively stable returns. Therefore, the investment choice of idle funds of listed companies bond fund is very appropriate, and it is also to adapt to the new development of the asset management industry after the new regulations.