Little fuss has been made over the first US dollar bond from Baosteel, China’s biggest listed steelmaker, sold this month. One of the best steel company credits in the world, Baosteel still paid close to 4 per cent to borrow $500m with its Hong Kong issue. But the bond will be priced off US Treasuries, not China’s local interest rates – and that may be worth its weight in gold to Baosteel, even in a time of Federal Reserve tapering. Even good Chinese companies face a tougher interest-rate environment and higher capital costs in 2014. This is worth fussing over.
本月，中國最大的上市鋼鐵企業寶鋼(Baosteel)首次在香港發行了5億美元的美元債券。此事并未引起多少關注。盡管這批債券是全球信用質量最高的鋼鐵企業債券之一，寶鋼仍將票面利率定在接近于4%的水平。不過，這批債券的定價基準是美國國債收益率，而非中國國內利率——此舉對寶鋼來說可能價值連城，盡管美聯儲(Fed)即將逐漸縮減量化寬松。2014年，即便是那些優質的中國企業，也要面臨更嚴峻的利率環境和更高的資金成本。這才是值得關注的事情。