工行海外收购步伐谨慎

When Industrial and Commercial Bank of Chinabought Bank of East Asia’s US arm last month, the deal demonstrated how the world’s biggest bank by market value approaches foreign acquisitions.

中国工商银行(ICBC)上月收购了东亚银行(Bank of East Asia)的美国子公司。这笔交易从一个侧面展现出了这家按市值计算全球第一大银行的海外收购模式。

It is a conservative ‘follow the money’ strategy: ICBC is trailing, not leading, the rest of China Inc.

这是一种保守的“追随资金流动策略：工行选择跟随而非引领其他中资企业的海外扩张。

China’s petrochemical, mining and industrial giants have been aggressive in recent years in buying resources around the world and making strategic investments, from deepwater oil assets in Brazil to iron ore mines in Australia.

近年来，中国的石化、矿业和制造业巨头们在世界各地积极进行资源收购和战略投资，从巴西的深海石油资产到澳大利亚的铁矿石开采都有涉猎。

China’s banks, by contrast, have been far more reserved. ICBC has been the boldest in expanding abroad. Yet its acquisitions have all been bite-sized, such that its non-China holdings account for less than 5 per cent of its overall revenues.

相比之下，中国银行业对海外扩张的态度非常保守。工行已经是其中最为大胆的了。但工行的海外收购规模一直较小，其非本土业务的营收仅占该行总营收的5%。

Critics say that ICBC has been cautious to a fault, missing some potentially good opportunities. But Chinese investors were burned by a couple of mega-deals before the financial crisis (the sovereign wealth fund invested in Morgan Stanley and Blackstone just months before their stock prices plummeted), and neither banks nor regulators have any appetite for risky acquisitions.

批评人士指出，工行谨慎过度，错失了一些有潜力的优秀投资机会。但中国投资者从金融危机前进行的数笔巨额海外投资中汲取了惨痛教训(中国主权财富基金对摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)和黑石(Blackstone)投资后仅数月，两者股价即大幅跳水)，现在无论是银行自身还是监管当局对于有一定风险的收购机会都提不起兴趣。

If the size of ICBC’s foreign forays have been small, the pace at which it has completed acquisitions and the global spread of these deals have been far more impressive. Over the past two years it has bought banks in Argentina, Thailand and Canada.

虽然工行的海外投资规模一直较小，但其完成收购的速度以及收购标的全球分布的地域广度令人印象深刻。近两年中，工行已收购了阿根廷、泰国和加拿大等地的数家银行。

ICBC’s game plan has been straightforward. It wants to establish a footprint wherever Chinese companies are most active, hence its focus on resource-rich countries and southeast Asia, China’s near abroad.

工行的发展计划非常明确。该行希望自身业务网络能够覆盖到中国企业较为活跃的所有地区，因此将海外扩张的重点放在了资源密集型国家以及临近中国的东南亚地区。

The deal for Bank of East Asia’s US operation was, in one respect, groundbreaking: it was the first time that a Chinese bank had acquired full control of a US bank.

工行收购东亚银行美国子公司具有突破性意义：这是中资银行首次获得一家美国银行的控股权。

But on a strategic level, it was consistent with ICBC’s previous deals. First, it was an ultra-cautious move. Bank of East Asia US had just $780m in assets, pocket change for ICBC.

但该交易在战略层面与工行此前的收购是一致的。首先，交易本身极为谨慎。东亚银行美国子公司的资产规模仅为7.8亿美元，对于工行来说这不过是九牛一毛。

Second, the move into the US was a simple reflection of the fact that more and more Chinese companies are operating there and they want to be served by their own bank. In explaining its rationale, ICBC said that it was already serving large corporate clients in the US and that the acquisition would give it “an entry into the middle and small business lending markets.

其次，工行进军美国是为了应对越来越多的中国企业赴美开展业务并希望继续得到本国银行服务的发展趋势。工行对收购原因的解释是，该行已在美国面向大型企业客户提供服务，此次收购使其“得以进入美国中小企业贷款市场。

Because they are expanding abroad so slowly, Chinese banks do not pose any sort of competitive threat to the Citigroups or JPMorgans of this world for the time being. Yet in following the money, ICBC and its peers are, little by little, turning themselves into institutions with true global reach.

由于海外扩张速度较慢，中资银行短期内不会对花旗集团(Citigroup)、摩根大通(JPMorgan)等国际银行巨头构成任何竞争威胁。但通过跟随资金流动的策略，以工行为代表的中资银行正一点一滴地向真正意义上的全球化金融机构转型。