Monday, May 28, 2012

This bailout that looks like that bailout

In August 1998, the Chinese government issued bonds to recapitliase the big four banks.
The PBC first lowered the statutory reserve requirement ratio for the banking sector as a
whole from 13 per cent to 9 per cent, the MoF then issued RMB 270 billion (USD 33
billion)7 in special government bonds. The big four state-owned banks used the liquidity
freed up by the lowering of the reserve ratio to purchase the bonds. The government then
injected all the bond proceeds as equity into the big four banks (Mo, 1999), with the
consequence that the capital base of the big four banks more than doubled. As the initial
sole owner of the big four banks, the MoF thus met the capital call from these banks and
explicitly burdened future taxpayers to fund a capital injection.
Ma, Guonan. Who Pays  China's Bank Restructuring Bill. pg 14, CEPII Working Paper. February, 2006. Available at: http://www.cepii.net/anglaisgraph/workpap/pdf/2006/wp06-04.pdf

Two drunks holding each other up, anyone?
Walter, Carl E.; Fraser J. T. Howie (2011-01-19). Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China's Extraordinary Rise (Kindle Location 1069). John Wiley and Sons. Kindle Edition.

EDIT-1: For those of you who are missing the reference... Spain Weighs Injecting Debt Instead of Cash Into Bankia