China Securities Regulatory
Commission and Commission for Supervision and Management of State-owned
Properties have jointly issued proposals to promote experiments on split share
structure.
According to the proposals, changing the split-share structure is an
important reform for China's capital market. This will be good for improving the
pricing system of the market, strengthening market restrictions on listed
companies and promoting the reform of the state-owned enterprises.
The split share structure refers to the existence of a large volume of
non-tradable state and corporate shares. Currently, only about one-third of the
shares in domestically listed companies are floated on the market, which has
been blamed as one of the major problems of China's sluggish stock markets. The
structure puts public investors at a worse position than the actual controllers
of the listed companies
The proposals require that the reform should focus on improvement of the
capital market and the long-term development of the listed companies. The reform
aims to improve structure of listed companies, optimize capital structure and
increase capital returns.
The proposals made a clear requirement that legal rights of investors,
especially public investors should be fully protected through standard and
effective proceedings.
It is the basic requirement for the reform is to receive general recognition
and support, said the proposals.
According to the proposals, large and medium-sized listed companies,
especially those partially state-owned, should take this opportunity to improve
the modern enterprise system and to increase their capital values.
As major media for reform project designing, recommending institutions should
do well their job for the communication and negotiation between tradable share
holders and non-tradable share holders. The project should consider interests of
all shareholders and the future development of the company, said the proposals.
Furthermore, institutional investors should play a positive role, taking into
account of both the overall interests of shareholders and long-term development
of the market, said the proposals.
The proposals also require that the reform should be carried out in "a
reasonable rhythm." The information disclosure system and market supervision
system should be established to keep the order of the reform and other reform
measures should be launched to give a promotion to the reform on split share
structure with the support of supervision institutions of state-owned properties
at all levels.
Market performance on Chinese stock markets has been lackluster during the
past three years as investors are hoping to see an end to the split share
structure, a residue of China's planned economy.
As a result, China launched the reform early this month by starting from some
pilot listed companies.
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