从摩根大通的“子孙”看金融业创造力

Investors’ eyes are on America’s mighty banks. No wonder. Wall Street groups this week will unveil their second-quarter financial results. And these could offer useful signals about the state of the US economy, and whether Donald Trump’s deregulation and tax cut pledges are still unleashing animal spirits.

投资者的眼睛盯着美国实力雄厚的银行。这不奇怪。上周华尔街的各家银行相继公布了第三季度业绩。这些业绩数据可以提供有用的信号，用来判断美国经济状况，以及唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的去监管和减税承诺是否依然在激起动物精神。

But as investors and regulators watch names such as JPMorgan and Citigroup, they should also monitor the nameless world of non-banks as well. For one little secret about finance today is that the banking sector is not the really interesting game in town; instead, the real credit growth — and innovation — is now occurring in the world of private capital.

但当投资者和监管机构盯着摩根大通(JPMorgan)和花旗集团(Citigroup)等知名银行的时候，他们也应该关注声名不显的非银行金融世界。因为，当今金融界的一个小秘密就是，银行业并不是真正有意思的领域;相反，真正的信贷增长——和金融创新——正在私人资本的世界里发生。

To understand this, take a look at HPS, a $39bn investment group that used to be part of the Highbridge Group, once owned by JPMorgan Asset Management. The roots of this entity used to be described as a “hedge fund” since it made money by investing in markets.

要理解这一点，看一看资产管理规模达390亿美元的投资集团HPS就明白了。HPS曾经是高桥资本(Highbridge Capital)旗下公司，而高桥资本曾为摩根大通资产管理公司(JPMorgan Asset Management)所有。HPS曾经被描述为一家“对冲基金”，因为该机构通过投资市场来赚钱。

But HPS has morphed. The New York-based group this week announced that it has raised $6.5bn to make loans to companies, mostly of the risky and smaller sort. This “speciality loan” or “private debt” vehicle is financed by $4.5bn of equity investment from limited partners, such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. But the HPS fund also has $2bn of debt from a consortium of banks, like those reporting their earnings this week.

但HPS已经转型。这家纽约公司上周宣布，已募集65亿美元，用来向公司发放贷款，主要面向一些风险较高和规模较小的公司。这个“特殊贷款”或者“私人债务”工具有45亿美元的资金来自养老基金和主权财富基金等有限合伙人的股权投资。但还有20亿美元的债务借自银团，银团中就包括那些在上周公布业绩的银行。

What this essentially means is that big Wall Street banks will be lending money to HPS, which will then make corporate loans. Before the 2008 credit crunch, banks might have simply been expected to make those loans themselves.

基本上，这意味着华尔街的大银行借钱给HPS，HPS再向企业发放贷款。如果是在2008年信贷危机爆发以前，银行应该自己发放这些贷款。

This overturns the layperson’s idea of how a bank is supposed to work. For financiers, however, it is the new norm. The HPS fund seems to be the biggest to date — although it is hard to tell precisely because the “private” market is opaque. But HPS has other, smaller funds. So do most of the other big private equity and hedge fund players, with groups such as Apollo and BlueBay having also created hefty multibillion-dollar vehicles. Consultants such as Prequin reckon that the overall private debt market is already $600bn in size; the industry expects this to hit the trillion-dollar mark in 2020, presuming that the heady growth continues.

这颠覆了外行对银行运行机制的想法。然而，对金融人士而言，这是新常态。到目前为止，HPS基金似乎是同类中最大的一只基金——尽管很难做出精确判断，因为“私人”市场是不透明的。但HPS还拥有其他的一些规模较小的基金。其他大多数大型私人股本机构和对冲基金公司也是如此，Apollo和BlueBay等集团也打造了金额庞大的投资工具。Prequin等咨询机构估计，私人债务市场的规模已达6000亿美元;业内预计，如果继续保持目前的强劲增长势头，到2020年这个数字将冲破万亿美元大关。

Is this healthy? Financiers insist it is. They argue that these funds only exist because there is a tangible need: mid-market companies need cash, and banks are reluctant to provide this because the regulations introduced after the 2008 global financial crisis make it too costly for them to lend to risky, small clients.

这样健康吗?金融人士坚称这是健康的。他们认为，存在这些基金，只是因为有实际需求：中端市场的公司需要资金，而银行不太情愿为这类公司提供资金，因为2008年全球金融危机以后引入的法规，使银行向风险较高的小型客户提供贷款的成本变得过于高昂。

The evangelists thus argue that the private debt market should be applauded as a sign of entrepreneurial creativity — and force for economic growth. Private lending, they add, is less of a systemic threat since the banks are sharing credit risk with each other, and the limited partners are taking the first hit if loans turn sour. And since the equity in these funds is generally locked up for between five and seven years, there should not be any capital flight if loans go bad.

倡导者因此认为，私人债务市场应该作为一种企业创新的标志和推动经济增长的力量得到支持。他们补充称，私人贷款的系统性威胁较小，因为各家银行共同承担信贷风险，而有限合伙人将在贷款出现问题时承受第一波冲击。而且，由于对这些基金的股权投资通常会被锁定5到7年，就算贷款出现问题，应该也不会出现资本逃逸。

These are entirely fair points. Yet as these funds grow in size, it is hard to escape a sense of déjà vu, particularly given the warning this week from the International Monetary Fund about credit bubbles. After all, what these funds are essentially doing is reaping profits from regulatory arbitrage. They are typically delivering low double-digit returns because they — unlike banks — can make loans without onerous capital requirements or regulatory scrutiny. Meanwhile, the banks make returns from their own cash by “lending” — but via somebody else.

这些观点都很在理。然而，随着这些基金的规模扩大，难免让人有一种似曾相识之感，尤其是考虑到上周国际货币基金组织(IMF)发出的有关信贷泡沫的警告。毕竟，这些基金本质上是从监管套利中谋利。它们提供的回报通常能够达到较低的两位数，因为这些基金与银行不同，能够在没有苛刻的资本金要求或者监管审查的情况下发放贷款。同时，银行通过“放贷”利用自有资金获取回报——只不过这些借贷行为通过其他人完成。

Thankfully, unlike 2007, this peculiar game does not really pose any systemic risk; or not yet. Relative to the global financial system, $600bn is a relatively small sum. The long-term nature of the financing means it should be more resilient than the credit market innovations seen a decade ago.

值得庆幸的是，与2007年不同，这种特殊的游戏并没有真正造成任何系统性风险，至少暂时还没有。与全球金融体系的体量相比，6000亿美元相对而言是个小数目。这种融资方式的长期性意味着，它应该比10年前出现的信贷市场创新产品更具韧性。

Yet, if nothing else, the tale is a powerful example of how ham-fisted regulation and super-loose monetary policy can create some peculiar unintended consequences; and a sign of how inventive financiers can be, as they hunt for returns in a low-interest rate world.

然而，不说别的，这个故事是一个很好的例子，反映出笨拙的监管和超宽松货币政策会造成一些意想不到的特殊后果;这个故事也表明，在一个低息世界中寻求投资回报的金融人士多么具有创造性。

And it should provide a broader warning sign too: if you want to track what is really happening to credit today, in a financial system awash with cash, do not just look at the headline institutions. Regulators and investors alike should learn the lessons from 2008, and look at what is happening in the murky “shadow” banking world, be that in China, America or anywhere else. JPMorgan’s peculiar financial child — or grandchild — has become more interesting than JPMorgan.

这个故事还应该提供一个更广泛层面上的警示：在一个现金充裕的金融体系中，如果你想实时把握信贷领域的真实状况，不要只看那些最著名的金融机构。无论是在中国、美国或者其他任何地方，监管机构和投资者都应该从2008年危机中吸取教训，看一看在不透明的“影子”银行世界里正在发生什么。摩根大通在金融领域的稀奇的“子孙”，已变得比摩根大通本身更耐人寻味。