中国开发商的债务包袱将转嫁给谁？

China's property developers have shown themselves to be the great survivors of China's economy. After two years of having sales squeezed from one end and their supply of credit squeezed from the other, the industry has so far managed to hold out against steep price cuts and significant consolidation.

从中国房地产开发商的表现看，它们是中国经济的一大幸存者。在经历了两年的房屋销售下滑和信贷供应收紧这双重挤压之后，目前为止房地产行业并未被房价大幅下降和大规模的行业整合压垮。

In large part that's because developers have been able to tap non-traditional sources of finance -- albeit at a much higher cost -- even when Beijing thought it had turned off the tap. True to form, the sector has found itself new lenders of last resort to at least partially avoid the latest crunch, but assuming Beijing doesn't relax housing restrictions before the most recent round of financing matures, this time developers might have trouble avoiding selling off their assets or pushing apartments out the door at whatever they can get.

这很大程度上要归因于开发商一直能够利用非传统渠道进行融资(尽管成本要高很多)。即使是在北京认为自己已经切断了信贷供应之际。与以往历次宏观紧缩时期一样，房地产行业已给自己找到了新的最后贷款人，这让它们至少可以部分避免最新这轮信贷紧缩带来的冲击，但假如在开发商最新一轮融资的还款期到来之前，北京还没有放宽对楼市的限制措施，那么开发商可能将难以避免廉价甩卖楼盘的命运。

After bank loans started getting hard to come by in late 2010, the developers turned to trust companies for financing on a massive scale. The banking regulator started tightening trust financing mid-last year, and more recently has made it difficult for trusts to roll over loans to developers that are maturing. According to data from the China Trustee Association, outstanding trust financing to the property sector at the end of March was down from the end of last year (in Chinese). That's the first ever decline since early 2010, when data first became available.

2010年底银行贷款开始变得难以获得后，开发商转向信托公司寻求大规模的融资。去年年中银行业监管机构开始收紧对信托融资的控制，最近又限制信托公司给开发商即将到期的贷款提供续期。中国信托业协会的数据显示，3月底房地产行业未偿信托融资规模较去年底有所下滑。这是2010年初有数据以来的首次下滑。

'The government's crackdown on trust funding as an artery for financing is just the latest of its measures to force developers to bring down property prices,' said Richard David, chief executive of Shanghai-based real estate firm Treasury China Trust. 'There is going to be significant disruption to developers that rely on trust funding.'

位于上海的房地产公司华瑞中国地产信托(Treasury China Trust)的首席执行长戴维(Richard David)说，政府打击作为重要融资渠道的信托融资，这是迫使开发商降低房价的最新举措；对依靠信托融资的开发商将造成严重冲击。

China's asset management corporations -- initially set up over a decade ago to help the major banks deal with their nonperforming loans -- and property focused private equity funds are now wading in, providing cash so that the developers can pay off their trust loans. But while the funds see an excellent investment opportunity -- as long as they pick projects judiciously -- the AMCs are at least partly motivated by different concerns.

中国的资产管理公司和专注于房地产的私募股权基金眼下开始出手为开发商提供资金，以便使开发商能够偿还信托公司的贷款。虽然私募股权基金出手是因为看到了绝好的投资机会(只要明智地选择项目)，但资产管理公司的涉入至少一定程度而言是另有原因。中国最早一批资产管理公司成立于10多年前，初衷是为了帮助主要银行处理不良贷款。

'We don't increase the overall credit stock in the property sector,' said Zhang Zaiming, general manager of Cinda Asset Management Corp.'s asset management department. 'To put it another way, by buying nonperforming property assets we're helping relieve the potential for these firms to face a liquidity crisis.'

信达资产管理股份有限公司(Cinda Asset Management Corp.)资产管理部门的总经理张载明说，我们没有增加投放给房地产行业的总体信贷规模，换句话说，通过买进不良房地产资产，我们在帮助这些企业缓解潜在的流动性危机。

It's not just the developers that face a liquidity crisis, but the trusts as well. While a loan default would deliver a trust a windfall in collateral -- sometimes up to three times the value of the loans -- the trusts need to repay their investors immediately. It might take months to find a buyer for a stake in a property development, or even longer -- and at depressed prices - if a wave of such assets came onto the market at once.

不仅仅是开发商面临流动性危机，信托公司也一样。尽管如果开发商到期未还贷款，信托公司将在抵押品上大赚一笔，抵押品的价值有时最高可达贷款价值的三倍，但信托公司需要立即向其投资者付款。如果这类作为抵押品的资产如潮水般一齐挂牌出售，可能需要数月甚至更长的时间才能为房地产开发项目的股权找到买家，而且价格也会很低。

The emergence of the AMCs has helped avert a potential liquidity crunch among the lightly capitalized trusts. Still, market watchers say it's likely that some trusts will still need to dip into their own capital to meet redemptions.

资产管理公司的出现一定程度上避免了那些资金较少的信托公司可能遭遇的流动性危机。但市场观察人士说，有些信托公司可能仍需要动用自有资金来应对赎回请求。

So far the AMCs would appear not to be overly exposed to property.

到目前为止，资产管理公司对房地产市场的敞口似乎并不是很多。

'As a percentage of all nonperforming loans we've bought this year, trust NPLs account for less than 10%,' Li Xin, vice president at China Orient Asset Management Corp, recently told The Wall Street Journal. She said her firm started doing property deals with the trusts in the fourth quarter of last year.

中国东方资产管理公司(China Orient Asset Management Corp.)副总裁李欣前不久对《华尔街日报》记者说，信托不良贷款占我们今年购买的全部不良贷款的比例不到10%。她说，该公司去年第四季度开始从事房地产信托交易。

According to an executive at another of the four AMCs, his firm has invested between 5 billion yuan and 7 billion yuan in distressed property this year -- a small portion of the roughly 70 billion yuan ($11 billion) worth of trust financing that has already matured this year according to securities firm China International Capital Corporation.

据四大资产管理公司中另外一家公司的一位高管透露，他所在公司今年投资了人民币50亿至70亿元购买贬值房产。证券企业中国国际金融有限公司(China International Capital Corporation)表示，今年已到期的信托融资额约为700亿元(合110亿美元)。如此看来，50亿至70亿元的投资只占很小一部分。

Things are likely more risky for private equity investors. While property funds are a major fixture in the U.S. market, they're a relatively new development in China, with a wave of funds forming last year to take advantage of developers' financing needs.

对私募股权投资者来说，风险可能更大。房地产基金是美国市场上的主力军，但在中国仍算是个新生事物。去年，大量房地产基金在中国成立，目的就是利用开发商的融资需求。

'I thought that was a very dangerous situation because these people didn't know what fund management actually means,' Greg Peng, president of property investment fund AT Investment Management, said of some of the newly formed funds. Mr. Peng, who used to run Merrill Lynch's property investments in China, closed the first tranche of his fund in the third quarter of last year, raising one billion yuan from local investors, and plans to have invested 3 billion yuan by the middle of next year.

房地产投资基金安泰盘实股权投资管理有限公司(AT Investment Management)总裁蓬钢谈到部分新成立的基金时说，我以前认为这种情况很危险，因为这些人不知道基金管理究竟是什么意思。蓬钢曾任美林(Merrill Lynch)中国房地产投资部负责人。去年第三季度，蓬钢完成了他这只基金的第一轮资金募集工作，从中国投资者手中融资10亿元，并计划在明年年中以前完成30亿元投资。

With little experience, bad choices could leave many investors with moribund projects rather than the super-charged returns they're expecting.

由于没什么经验，很多投资者可能都会因选择不当而面对烂尾项目，而不是拿到他们所希望的超高回报。

Not all the funds are fully independent like Mr. Peng's. Some are tied to specific developers, operating as in-house fundraising platforms to provide cash for existing projects, or helping developers make acquisitions.

并非所有房地产投资基金都像蓬钢的基金一样完全独立。有些基金与特定的开发商绑定，以开发商内部融资平台的方式运作，为其现有项目提供资金，或帮助开发商进行项目收购。

There's also a lot of interest among foreign investors in investing in cash-strapped Chinese developers, although for the most part they seem to still be on the sidelines.

外国投资者对于投资手头拮据的中国开发商也非常感兴趣，不过他们似乎基本上还处于观望状态。

Property prices are already coming down, and developers are already selling projects -- or stakes in projects -- to get the cash to be able to pay off their debts. The question is how much more will they come down -- and is the emergence of the funds and AMCs as lenders of last resort just delaying the inevitable.

中国房价已开始下降，而开发商为偿还贷款，也开始抛售项目或项目股权以套现。现在的问题是，房价还会再降多少？房地产基金和资产管理公司作为开发商最后贷款人的出现是否仅仅是在推迟那种必然局面的到来？