The "New National Nine Articles" is a programmatic document of the capital market. It is also based on the consideration of the long-term healthy development of the capital market that the "New National Nine Rules" put forward a series of measures to solve the stock market problem.
On April 12, the Several Opinions of the State Council on Strengthening Supervision and Preventing Risks to Promote the High Quality Development of the Capital Market was officially released, which is known as the third "National Ninth Article" of the capital market, also referred to as the "New National Ninth Article".
The "New National Nine Articles" is a programmatic document of the capital market. From the perspective of its capital market planning, it has not only determined the development goals for the next five years, but also the development goals by 2035, as well as the development goals by the middle of this century. Therefore, the "New National Nine Rules" is committed to the long-term development of the capital market. For example, by 2035, a highly adaptable, competitive and inclusive capital market will be basically built, and investors' legitimate rights and interests will be more effectively protected. The investment and financing structure has become more reasonable, the quality of listed companies has improved significantly, and the construction of first-class investment banks and investment institutions has made significant progress. The capital market supervision system and mechanism are more complete. By the middle of this century, the modernization level of the capital market governance system and governance capability has been further improved, and a high-quality capital market matching the financial power has been built.
It is also based on the consideration of the long-term healthy development of the capital market that the "New National Nine Rules" put forward a series of measures to solve the stock market problem. For example, it was the first to put forward "strictly control the access to issuance and listing", which clearly proposed to further improve the issuance and listing system. These include improving the listing standards of the main board and GEM, and improving the evaluation standards of the sci-tech innovation attribute of the sci-tech innovation board; Improve the quality and efficiency of issuance and listing guidance, and expand the coverage of on-site inspections of enterprises under review and relevant intermediaries; Clarify the dividend policy to be disclosed when listing; Include the situation of pre listing surprise "clearance" dividends into the negative list of issuance and listing.
In terms of improving the listing standards of the main board and GEM and expanding the coverage of on-site inspections of enterprises under review and relevant intermediaries, it is indeed possible to control the "IPO access" to a large extent. For the A-share market, this issue is of course very important, but there is a more important issue that has been ignored, that is, the shareholding ratio of the largest shareholder is too high, which leads to the problem of "one share is dominant". Some major shareholders hold 60%, 70% or more shares. In the case of state-owned enterprises, the reduction of major shareholders may be restrained by the competent authorities, but in the case of private enterprises and private enterprises, the motivation for reduction is quite sufficient, and major shareholders will therefore use the stock market as their own cash dispenser. In this case, even if the large shareholders' reduction behavior is standardized, the fact that the large shareholders regard the stock market as a cash machine cannot be changed.
Therefore, in order to fundamentally solve this problem, it is necessary to improve the equity structure of listed companies and stipulate that IPO companies must standardize the equity structure of companies. Except for state-owned holding companies, the shareholding of controlling shareholders of various companies listed in IPO should not exceed 30% of the company's total share capital. In this way, the problem of the company's dominance of shares can be easily solved. At the same time, the space for major shareholders to reduce their holdings is relatively small, so it is difficult to use the stock market as an ATM. Solving this problem will lay the foundation for the healthy development of the stock market.
Moreover, on the issue of further improving the issuance and listing system, it is not only necessary to improve the listing standards of the main board and GEM, but also the listing standards of the science and technology innovation board. In principle, loss making enterprises should not be IPO listed, and the investment risks undertaken by venture capital institutions should not be transferred to public investors. The IPO of companies that meet delisting conditions should not be allowed to go public, which not only harms the interests of public investors, but also tramples on the delisting system of A-shares.
Another example is the issue of "strengthening the whole chain responsibility of issuance and listing" mentioned in the "New National Ninth Article". The "New National Ninth Article" stresses that the primary responsibility of issuers and the "gatekeeper" responsibility of intermediaries should be further compacted, the "blacklist" system of intermediaries should be established, "reporting is responsible" should be adhered to, and illegal issues such as fraudulent issuance should be strictly investigated. In fact, on the issue of compaction responsibility, the key is not only to achieve "reporting is responsible", but also to implement the "responsibility". The whip should not be held high and dropped gently, and finally be "warned" and "warned". Instead, it should be severely punished, or even held accountable, to compensate investors for losses. If it is only a light punishment, such accountability is meaningless.
Another example is to standardize shareholders' shareholding reduction behavior, and the "New National Nine Rules" proposed to comprehensively improve the shareholding reduction rule system. For this reason, the "New National Ninth Article" proposed to introduce the management measures for the reduction of shares of listed companies, and to implement policies for different types of shareholders. Strictly regulate the reduction of major shareholders, especially controlling shareholders and actual controllers, and resolutely prevent all kinds of detour reduction in accordance with the principle of substance over form. At the same time, for companies that have not paid dividends for many years or have a low proportion of dividends, large shareholders are restricted from reducing their holdings. These measures are necessary, but two of the most important issues are not mentioned. First, the controlling shareholders' shareholding ratio is too high, and they regard the stock market as a cash machine; The second is the problem of controlling shareholders' "clearance" reduction.
The first problem is to standardize the equity structure of listed companies and limit the shareholding of controlling shareholders to 30%, which is consistent with the improvement of IPO system. For the second problem, the controlling shareholders should not be allowed to "liquidate" their holdings, that is, 15% to 20% of the shares held by the controlling shareholders should be non tradable shares, which can be inherited or transferred offline at one time, but cannot be sold in the secondary market or through block transactions, so as to avoid the listed company becoming a company without actual controllers.
Therefore, although the introduction of the "New National Nine Rules" is intended to protect the capital market, as far as the introduction and improvement of the relevant policies involved in the "New National Nine Rules" are concerned, it is necessary to grasp the main contradictions and solve the main problems, so as to ensure that the A-share market is less wrong and detours on the track of healthy development, which is also the best protection for the interests of investors.
(The author of this article introduces that a financial commentator, who has honed his unique vision and opinion on the stock market through 20 years of stock market training, has written the book "Easily speculate in stocks".)
