Shenzhen Listed Companies Usher In Classified Supervision "Hot Spot" And Will Be Listed As "Abnormal Category"

On the evening of August 30, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange issued the measures for risk classification management of listed companies (hereinafter referred to as the classification measures), pointing out that the listed companies will be divided into high-risk, sub high-risk, concerned and normal categories from high to low according to different risk severity and regulatory concerns of listed companies.

For high-risk and sub high-risk listed companies, the exchange will focus on the allocation of regulatory resources, focusing on its information disclosure, merger and reorganization, refinancing and other issues.

As soon as the news came out, it immediately attracted wide attention from the market.

"This classification of risk levels of listed companies has a very good guiding significance for capital market supervision. It can effectively concentrate resources and focus on key companies, classify risk levels of listed companies through various indicators, and better conduct differentiated supervision, which will significantly improve the efficiency of front-line supervision." On August 31, a strategic analyst of a medium-sized securities firm in South China was interviewed.

"Hot spots" are classified as "abnormal"

According to the public data, the SZSE evaluates and classifies the risk level of listed companies from five dimensions: financial fraud risk, operation risk, governance and operation risk, market risk and delisting risk. The rating indicators include basic indicators, etc. Among them, the basic indicators are set based on the daily operation and financial data of listed companies and combined with the characteristics of the industry.

At the same time, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange also calculates the risk value of each company by giving different risk weights to the basic indicators, combining with the trigger indicators, and comprehensively considering the industry characteristics, company characteristics, daily supervision and other adjustments, the classification level of listed companies is determined.

Specifically, there are outstanding lawsuits, major violations, substandard performance commitments, a year after the performance commitment period, high goodwill, high pledge, frequent changes in directors and supervisors in the latest year, being issued with non-standard opinions, being criticized or given major administrative punishment, and "rubbing hot spots" and other enterprises, whose classification level shall not be allowed It is normal.

According to the statistics of 21st century economic report, for example, "goodwill at the end of the period accounts for more than 50% of net assets", there are 73 listed companies in Shenzhen stock market exceeding this value in the annual report data of 2019; similarly, there are 296 listed companies in Shenzhen stock market that touch the data of "the share pledge proportion of controlling shareholders and their acting in concert exceeds 80%"; and touch the "financial situation of the latest accounting year" There are 180 enterprises whose accounting reports are issued with non-standard audit opinions "(taking the annual report of 2019 as an example).

It is worth mentioning that in addition to the abnormal financial index data and operational risk, the indicators listed in the abnormal category also included an act of "the company is suspected of using hot concepts and information disclosure to speculate on the company's share price". In the eyes of many industry insiders, the inclusion of this index rule will play a role in purifying the ecology of A-share market.

Prior to this, there were many cases in the A-share market that caused substantial fluctuations in the share price by means of announcement, interactive easy reply, micro blog and wechat.

For example, at the beginning of the year, some enterprises stated in public that they had connection or business cooperation with hot topics such as the fight against new crown pneumonia, new energy vehicles, Internet red economy, etc., which led to the agitation of the secondary market, while the company's executives took the opportunity to put forward the reduction plan.

In the view of industry insiders, such behaviors as "rubbing hot spots" and subject matter speculation are not conducive to market stability, easy to breed arbitrage or insider trading, and harm the credibility of information disclosure of listed companies. Listed companies should have a sense of awe for the market, investors should also be vigilant against "speculation" behavior, and the regulatory authorities should strictly prevent and control relevant behaviors, and take actions against behaviors that violate the principle of information disclosure Severe punishment should be imposed to prevent the compilation of concepts and "rubbing hot spots", and the disclosure of "swindle" and "speculation" should be cracked down.

"It hurts the credibility of information disclosure of listed companies, damages the happiness, sense of gain and security of the majority of investors, and misleads investors' judgment, which hides the dishonest behaviors of some companies, such as making false statements, making fat faces and hyping concepts; some deliberately cause investors to have unnecessary associations, which will lead to irrational associations Misjudgment of major investment. In fact, it means abusing the freedom of information disclosure and damaging the rights of investors. We should adopt a zero tolerance attitude Liu Junhai, Professor of Law School of Renmin University of China, pointed out in an interview.

As the "hot spot" enterprises are focused on by the regulation, in the view of investors, it will effectively crack down on this kind of behavior that does not fear the market.

High risk companies are focused on

According to the classification method, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange divides listed companies into different classification levels, mainly based on the classification results for differentiated supervision.

The reporter of 21st century economic report has learned that since 2003, Shenzhen Stock Exchange has started to formulate the risk classification standards of listed companies, dynamically evaluate the risk classification level of listed companies, and start the preliminary exploration of classified supervision. At present, Shenzhen Stock Exchange has built a rigorous risk monitoring intelligent platform by using advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data.

Before the audit of the annual report in 2019, the Shenzhen stock exchange used this system to "pull the net" investigation on more than 2000 companies, and provided regulatory resources according to the risk classification. For high-quality listed companies with high quality of information disclosure and continuous and standardized operation, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange appropriately implemented exemption audit in daily supervision work such as regular report review.

For high-risk companies, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange has implemented the audit mode of "double audit + industry group plus audit", and has established a professional review mechanism in accounting, restructuring, corporate governance and other professional fields, inclining regulatory resources to high-risk companies suspected of financial fraud and fictitious transactions hollowing out funds of listed companies.

According to the classification method, when it comes to "the main business is in a standstill, the main operating assets are lost", "being listed as a person who has been executed in breach of trust or listed in the list of abnormal business operations", "applying or being applied for bankruptcy liquidation and reorganization", "having major defects in internal control", "being given negative opinions or unable to express opinions", "being filed for investigation or preliminary investigation, and transferred to justice" If one of the ten indicators, such as "filing a case for investigation", will be judged as "high risk class".

According to the statistics of some quantifiable indicators, the reporter of 21st century economic report found that in the annual report of 2019, 20 companies were issued with "unable to express their opinions", but no enterprises had been issued with "negative opinions"; in the past year, 54 enterprises were publicly investigated by the CSRC; and 117 ST or * ST shares had delisting risk in Shenzhen stock market.

According to the relevant arrangements, listed companies that are classified as high-risk category shall not be rated a in terms of information disclosure assessment rating, and shall not enjoy the straight through train qualification of Shenzhen stock exchange for information disclosure. The Shenzhen Stock Exchange will also conduct a double review of its annual report and make public the inquiry letter and the company's reply to the market.

The aforementioned analysts pointed out: "the risk classification of listed companies will help to discover and reveal the risk coefficient of Listed Companies in advance, help the market participants, regulators, investors, creditors, listed companies themselves and local governments to deal with risks in advance, prevent the occurrence of systemic risks, and facilitate the stable operation of the capital market."

A senior market person in China also said: "the disclosure of various risk classification indicators is conducive to passing the regulatory guidance of" supporting the superior and limiting the inferior "to the market, strengthening the incentive and restraint mechanism, prompting listed companies to consciously adapt to regulatory requirements, actively resolve risks, improve the quality of listed companies, and maintain the benign operation of the market."

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