Zhang Yuewen, Institute Of Finance Of The Chinese Academy Of Social Sciences: Reform And Improve The Existing A Share Market Layering To Promote The Initiative Of Listed Companies To Improve Their Quality

Zhang Yue Wen

"Listed companies are the foundation of the whole capital market. There are good quality listed companies, and the long-term healthy development of the capital market has a fundamental guarantee."

In December 5th, Zhang Yuewen, director of the Financial Research Office of the Financial Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, published the keynote speech entitled "improving the direction and path of improving the quality of listed companies", sponsored by the headquarters of the central broadcasting and TV station, the big bay area headquarters of Guangdong, Hongkong and Macau, and the southern financial and economic media group, and the twenty-first Century China financial market, the 2019 China Southern Capital International Forum.

Zhang Yuewen pointed out that there are many mainstream views on the quality of listed companies, such as profitability standard, industry status standard, system importance standard, stock price standard, scale standard and so on.

He defined the quality of listed companies as "the comprehensive ability of listed companies to create value, manage value and distribute value for shareholders and stakeholders".

For the changing trend of the quality of listed companies, Zhang Yuewen believes that from the overall quality perspective, the quality of listed companies has improved steadily since 2014, and the overall performance in terms of value creation ability, management ability and value distribution ability has been relatively stable. However, there are still some problems in the subdivision of listed companies. For example, the comprehensive financial quality has declined. In terms of corporate governance, a large number of listed companies are still relatively estranged in their controlling shareholders and small shareholders. The small shareholders' concern and participation in the company's decision-making are not very high. In internal control, some listed companies have not discovered or deliberately concealed internal control defects, and few companies have voluntarily recognized their internal control defects and made rectification.

How to improve the quality of listed companies?

He suggested that in accordance with the principles of the quality of listed companies and the risk tolerance of investors, we should reform and improve the existing A share market stratification, promote the initiative of listed companies to improve their quality, and better realize and protect the interests of investors.

Specifically, the following reform measures can be taken:

First, integrate the main board and the small and medium board market of the Shenzhen stock exchange and integrate the high-quality blue chips in the two listed companies to form a A preferred market. The preferred market has higher listing threshold than the existing main board market, and the threshold for delisting is lower. The companies on the market need to shoulder more responsibility for continuous listing, but they also apply simpler refinancing and restructuring audit procedures. Allow all types of investors to enter.

Second, integrate the remaining listed companies in the main board and the small and medium-sized board market to form a new main board market. The new main board market is also open to all types of investors. But for ST class stocks, only institutional investors and qualified individual professional investors are allowed to invest directly. Ordinary investors can participate in the investment through the purchase of funds.

Third, we should speed up the reform of the GEM market, implement the stock issuance registration system, lower the listing threshold, relax restrictions on transaction and price fluctuation appropriately, simplify the delisting process, and the original GEM listed companies that meet the high-level market requirements can apply to enter the advanced board market. Qualified investors in the new growth enterprise market will be limited to institutional investors and professional individual investors.

Fourth, we should make a unified adjustment to the listing system and delisting system of the preferred market, the new main board market and the new growth enterprise market, and form a clear market level, and establish a transfer board system among all levels of the market. With the support of the transfer board system, the withdrawal of the stock from the high level market to the lower level market will not lead to the "cliff type fall" of stock valuations and liquidity. At the same time, allowing the listed companies to flow among all levels of the market can promote the listed companies to improve their own quality and speed up the rational return of investors, which is conducive to the healthy development of the stock market.