Billionaire short seller Jim Chanos, founder of hedge fund Kynikos Associates Ltd., spoke to Bloomberg TV’s Betty Liu this morning about China’s banking system and outlook for the Chinese economy and real estate market.
Chanos on his recent trip to Hong Kong and Australia:
“I think we probably came back a little bit more bearish….Our concerns about what we saw in Australia: an economy clearly tied to China has hitched its wagon to the tail of the tiger. In terms of the general complacency, what we heard over and over from investors and clients and potential clients is, ‘yes, yes, there are some excesses, but the government will figure out a way. That the government is this all-knowing, omniscient basic entity that will not prevent me from losing money.”
Jim Chanos whether the Chinese government has money:
“[The Chinese government] doesn’t [have money], and that’s the problem. The banking system in China is extremely fragile, and that’s one of the messages we wanted to get to people.”
“In fact, because what happened the last two crises, in ’99 and ’04, when non-performing loans went crazy in China without even a recession, the Chinese banking system was not re-capitalized like ours was, it was papered over. Going into this credit expansion, Chinese banks are sitting on lots of bonds from the so-called asset management companies set up in 1999 and 2004, and they are keeping them on the books at par, at full value. In the case of Agricultural Bank of China, which we’re short, those restructuring receivables are equal to over 100% of their tangible book. The Chinese banking system is built on quicksand, and that’s the one thing a lot of people don’t realize. When they talk about the foreign reserves of $3 trillion, what everybody forgets is there’s liabilities against that.”
