China’s smaller banks are planning more than Rmb100bn ($16.8bn) in equity sales as they look to shore up their capital bases to cope with regulatory changes and an expected rise in bad loans.
Much more than that will come, however, as the weakest of the Hong Kong-listed Chinese banks has yet to announce further capital-raising plans and a number of city-level banks are waiting for the opportunity to raise funds.
China Minsheng Bank raised $3.2bn via a convertible bond in March but has one of the weakest capital bases in China, and analysts expect it will be forced to raise equity soon. “I would expect Minsheng to be next to launch a rights issue and perhaps Citic [a rival lender] soon after that,” said one analyst in Hong Kong.