2. Starting from the identity or organizational structure of investors, institutional investors are defined as a kind of investors corresponding to individuals, that is, legal persons, which are embodied as legal persons who open stock accounts, including three types:
(1) Securities companies and securities investment fund management companies with clear legal rights to engage in stock trading according to the Securities Law and relevant laws and regulations;
(2) According to the Securities Law and relevant laws and regulations, "three types of enterprises" that can participate in stock trading but their operations are restricted, namely state-owned enterprises, state-owned holding companies and listed companies;
(3) Legal persons who lack clear legal provisions on whether to participate in stock trading or whose rights and obligations are not specific, such as foreign-funded enterprises, private enterprises, unlisted non-state-controlled joint-stock enterprises, corporate legal persons and so on.
13. In the Interim Measures for the Administration of Domestic Securities Investment of Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors jointly issued by the People's Bank of China and the China Securities Regulatory Commission on June 5438+065438+ 10, 2002, qualified foreign institutional investors are defined as China overseas fund management institutions and insurance companies that meet the relevant conditions and are approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission to invest in the China securities market and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
In foreign countries, it is emphasized that the main business of institutional investors should mainly focus on securities investment activities, but China has paid little attention to this. Accordingly, foreign institutional investors have rich rational judgment ability and operational skills in the financial field, especially in the field of securities investment, but China's views on this issue are rather vague. From the operational practice, the differences between Chinese and foreign institutional investors can be understood from the following two aspects:
First, the origin of institutional investors is based on completely different reasons.
In western developed countries, as the most typical institutional investor-securities investment fund, its ancestor is 1868, which was born in Britain as "Overseas and Colonial Government Trust". /kloc-at the end of 0/8, Britain experienced a profound industrial revolution, which led to a surplus of funds, which made many people invest their funds overseas in order to obtain higher returns. However, due to the lack of international investment knowledge, the risk of investing in the securities markets of various countries occasionally breaks out, and a considerable number of these investors have suffered relatively large losses, thus creating the market demand for the government to set up funds. In this context, the launched funds are favored by investors. Subsequent funds, such as "Scottish American Trust" founded by Scots on 1873 and "Massachusetts Investment Trust Company" established by Massachusetts Financial Services Company in Boston on 1926, all developed based on market needs. It is not difficult to see that the driving force for the development of institutional investors comes from the demand of market investors and is the spontaneous behavior of the market.
On the other hand, in China's securities market, the emergence and development of institutional investors is to some extent driven by the government for its own needs, which is an obvious government behavior. These demands mainly come from two aspects: on the one hand, it is suitable for the rapid expansion of the securities market, and it is expected that the expansion of institutional investors will bring about a rapid increase in market funds. For example, Shenzhen Stock Exchange and Shanghai Stock Exchange decided to allow institutional investors to enter the market in 199 1 993, and decided to allow three types of enterprises to enter the market in 1999. , all because of the above reasons. In addition, it is considered that the depressed market and the demand for market funds have always been the original driving force for the management to develop securities investment funds. As early as1July, 1994, in view of the market situation, the core of the three policies formulated by the management were: "developing joint investment funds, cultivating institutional investors, launching pilot projects of Chinese-foreign cooperative fund management companies, and gradually attracting overseas funds to invest in the domestic A-share market". When the market conditions were not mature at that time, the management introduced such measures, which clearly showed the intention to stimulate the market. On the other hand, it is hoped that institutional investors can meet the requirements of the stable and standardized development of the securities market, and this intention is clearly expressed in relevant laws and regulations. For example, the Interim Measures for the Management of Securities Investment Funds 1997 1 1 promulgated in June stipulates that securities investment funds "promote the healthy and stable development of the securities market" is one of their purposes. In order to stabilize and standardize the market development, the management provided preferential policy treatment to institutional investors, mainly in the subscription of new shares. For example, if new shares are issued before May 18, 2000, they can be placed separately with the fund, and then the fund can apply for an appointment placement as a strategic investor or a general legal person investor.
Second, the operating environment of institutional investors is very different.
The appearance of foreign institutional investors is essentially the product of financial innovation, and its development has further promoted the development of financial innovation, and the two have formed a benign interactive relationship. In China, the development of institutional investors is basically driven by policies, and there is a lack of adaptive living space, so that "the extraordinary development of institutional investors" has become the product of "encouraging seedlings".
First of all, foreign institutional investors not only have a large enough domestic market for them to operate, but also can continuously include the markets of other countries, especially some emerging markets with development potential, in the context of the expansion of portfolio theory to the international scope, thus avoiding the risks of a single country's securities market to a certain extent. For example, in the British asset management industry, foreign capital accounts for 20% of its total proportion.
On the other hand, institutional investors in China can basically invest in China. The momentum of China's capital market development, that is, the rapid development of the stock market and the relatively slow development of the bond market, makes their operating space very limited, and the characteristics of "large number and small circulation" of listed companies in the stock market further restrict their investment operation.
Secondly, foreign institutional investors, especially those in developed countries, generally use financial derivatives to gain wider investment opportunities and improve the effectiveness of risk management. For example, 6 1% pension fund companies and insurance companies in EU countries use derivatives directly or through external fund managers, of which 75% use derivatives for purposeful asset allocation and 50% are used to avoid cash risks.
In China stock market, systemic risk accounts for most of the total risk, even reaching about 80%. Diversified investment plays a very limited role in avoiding risks, and it is impossible to introduce financial derivatives such as stock index futures and options that can avoid systemic risks according to market requirements, resulting in weak anti-risk ability of institutional investors.
Finally, the expanding operating space of overseas institutional investors provides investors with innovative investment targets. Take investment funds as an example. Since the 1990s, the British fund industry has launched a series of innovative varieties, mainly including:
(1) Personal Stock Plan (PEP) and Personal Savings Account (ISA). PEP and ISA are both personal savings and investment plans, which can enjoy certain tax-free concessions;
(2) Umbrella funds and split capital investment trusts (split). Umbrella fund mainly uses umbrella structure to meet the different investment needs of investors. Under this structure, multiple sub-funds can be established, each with specific investment objectives and characteristics, and investors can switch between sub-funds conveniently and cheaply. Split capital investment trust is a kind of investment trust, which satisfies investors' different investment demand preferences by issuing shares with different rights to capital growth and income.
⑶ Venture Capital Trust VCT mainly includes GEM VCT, Hi-tech VCT and General VCT. It is particularly noteworthy that in some developed countries, an innovative fund variety "Exchange-traded Fund or Stock Transfer Certificate (XXDR)" has developed rapidly. Investors in ETFs can either transfer ETFs on the exchange like closed-end funds, or demand the redemption of ETFs to obtain the stocks they represent. Therefore, ETF has the advantages of both open-end fund and closed-end fund, and has become a passive investment with great vitality. Similarly, hedge funds that used to target the rich have also been included in the portfolio of ordinary investors.
In China's securities market, the types of funds available for investors to choose are very limited. There are not only stock funds, bond funds and money market funds in foreign markets, but also bond funds are extremely scarce. Moreover, even stock funds with a certain scale have great defects, mainly in the similar operation modes of these fund companies, which have not formed their own independent style and cannot be recognized by ordinary investors.