Kyle Bass: China’s $40 Trillion Banking System Has “Largest Imbalances I’ve Ever Seen”
Kyle Bass’s Hayman Capital has been having a rough year thanks to its widely publicized bet against China’s currency, which has more than reversed its 2016 decline – its largest annual drop since 1994 – as the People’s Bank of China has cracked down on potentially destabilizing capital outflows.
However, Bass – unlike a handful of other former China bears who’ve been forced to scale back, or even reverse, their positions – has said that he is standing by his belief that China’s corporate sector is massively overleveraged, and overdue for a collapse that could destabilize the global economy. Chinese banks, according to Bass, have more than $40 trillion in assets held against $2 trillion in equity.
The dollar’s bull run against the yuan last year helped spark capital outflows as wealthy Chinese worried about the depreciation of their currency. In response, the PBOC tightened restrictions on foreign-exchange transactions for individuals, local companies – quashing a roaring international M&A boom – and even foreign companies, which in some cases have struggled to pull their money out of the world’s second-largest economy.
“So what’s going on right now? Let’s get the elephant out of the room. Let’s talk about China.
Kyle Bass: OK, how much time do we have?
RP: As long as you need. Where are we? What the hell’s going on?
KB: We’re in the such late stages of a game that is the largest global imbalance I’ve ever seen in my life.When you look at on balance sheet and off balance sheets, you look at on balance sheet in the banks, you look in the shadow banks. The number of total credit in the system, China is right at $40 trillion. Think about the number I just said. $40 trillion. And that’s using an exchange rate of call it 6.7 to the dollar, right? So it’s grown 1,000% in a decade. And we’re on a $40 trillion credit system on $2 trillion of equity on maybe $1 trillion of liquid reserves.
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