China’s unfashionable state-owned enterprises are getting a second look from investors as their stocks beat the broader market and Beijing judges executives on share price performance.
A sub-index of SOEs with minority listings in Hong Kong has outperformed the city’s benchmark index by 40 per cent since the start of 2021, although it is flat in absolute terms amid an extended stock market rout.
Many unloved SOE stocks have single-digit price-to-earnings ratios, while offering healthy dividend yields that averaged 7 per cent for the Hang Seng China Central SOEs index in 2023, compared with 4 per cent for the broader Hang Seng China Enterprises index.