Anyone looking for evidence of investors’ deflating expectations for Chinese companies in the past few years need only glance at China’s biggest banks. The four that listed in the pre-Lehman boom years priced at a minimum of three times their book value. Even Agricultural Bank of China, with a 2010 listing, managed a multiple of 2.5 times – more than twice the level for western banks at the time. Now the five biggest in China trade at just over book value. Yet all have defied the country’s slowdown and lower analyst forecasts to produce strong first-quarter growth. Are China’s banks cheap?
任何人想找證據證明過去幾年投資者對中國公司的期望值越來越低，只需看一眼中國最大的幾家銀行。在雷曼倒閉前經濟繁榮時期上市的四家大銀行，當時定價的市值至少是其賬面價值的3倍。即使是2010年上市的中國農業銀行(AgBank)，市淨率也達2.5倍——是當時西方銀行的兩倍多。現在中國五大銀行的市值僅略微超過其賬面價值。然而，它們都頂住中國經濟成長放緩的趨勢，發佈了強勁的一季度業績，超出分析師預測。這說明中國的銀行股很便宜嗎？