Chinese firms might submit to greater scrutiny by the U.S. auditing agency to gain credibility with investors

Published: May 27, 2020 at 11:07 a.m. ET, By Shang-Jin Wei

NEW YORK (Project Syndicate) — After passing unanimously in the U.S. Senate on May 20, the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act is heading for the House of Representatives, and President Donald Trump is expected to sign it into law.

The law would require that all companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges submit to audits reviewable by the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), and noncompliant firms could be delisted after three years. This has generated talk that all Chinese firms could disappear from US exchanges.

Some observers might question the wisdom of such legislation, on the grounds that it could hurt returns on U.S. household savings, financial-sector profits, and the global competitiveness of U..S stock exchanges.

With legislation that would force all Chinese firms listed on US stock exchanges to submit to the same regulatory oversight as American firms, US policymakers are calling China’s bluff. Far from confirming fears of a widespread delisting of Chinese firms, the law will likely improve the investment environment.

While these are legitimate concerns, a U.S. threat to delist Chinese firms could be worth the risk, leading not only to more credible disclosures, but also, perhaps surprisingly, to more listings by high-quality Chinese private-sector firms.

Truthful disclosure

Truthful disclosure and severe punishment for noncompliance constitute the bedrock of sound capital-market governance. The U.S. applies the same criteria to all firms that seek a listing on a U.S. stock exchange, and oversight by the PCAOB is a key element of enforcing the rules.

When a listed firm makes a questionable disclosure, the PCAOB reserves the right under the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act to inspect the underlying accounting documents of its auditing firm. If deficiencies are found, the auditing firm must amend its report and take steps to improve its procedures and practices. This enhances investors’ confidence in the listed firms’ disclosures.

But the Sarbanes-Oxley Act does not apply to other countries, some of which have laws or regulations that prohibit local auditing firms from turning over accounting documents to foreign regulators like the PCAOB. China is one of those countries. Belgium and France also make it difficult for the PCAOB to audit their local auditing firms, but the PCAOB expects to be able to resolve the access problem by negotiation.

There are about 150 U.S.-listed firms that are headquartered or operate principally in China. A few are majority state-owned — including China Life LFC, PetroChina PTR, China Telecom CHA, China Unicom CHU, and China Eastern Airlines CEA — but around 90% of them are private-sector firms. Among these are dynamic and highly profitable companies such as Alibaba BABA, Baidu BIDU, and Bilibili BILI.

In the past, the PCAOB has presumably tried to negotiate with Chinese authorities for access to auditors’ work product in China. But trying to compel China to grant such access has not been a policy priority because U.S. stock exchanges, investment banks, and money-management firms like to maximize the U.S. listing of Chinese firms.

Chinese IPOs

After all, over the past 15 years, Chinese firms have dominated global initial public offerings, and U.S. stock exchanges have been competing fiercely with those in London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Shenzhen for these listings. As the number of IPOs by U.S.-headquartered companies declines steadily (from around 300 per year in the early 1990s to fewer than 100 per year more recently), Chinese companies have become even more attractive to U.S. stock exchanges.

Similarly, U.S. investment banks earn fat commissions by taking firms public, and they have a home-field advantage when those listings occur on a U.S. stock exchange. Indeed, cajoling by U.S. investment banks is the main reason why so many Chinese companies have come to the U.S. in the first place.

And, for their part, money-management firms (or their clients) prefer — or, in some cases, are mandated — to hold U.S.-listed stocks.

While one can see how delisting Chinese companies could reduce these U.S. entities’ profits or global competitiveness, the potential impact on American investor interests is less clear-cut.

On one hand, excluding firms that commit accounting fraud is obviously good for U.S. investors. On the other hand, accounting fraud is rather rare, and the risk of it tends to be outweighed by the sustained, sometimes market-beating returns that many U.S.-listed Chinese firms offer investors. Delisting them therefore could mean foregoing sound investment opportunities for U.S. investors.

Moreover, PCAOB oversight is not the only way to discover accounting problems. Many short-selling companies specialize in investigating and uncovering fake profits or bogus growth figures, and they sometimes are more thorough and creative than the PCAOB.

For example, the short seller Muddy Waters recently uncovered accounting fraud committed by Luckin Coffee LK, a U.S.-listed Chinese company, by sending investigators to visit its physical stores. Luckin’s bosses are now under criminal investigation in both China and the United States.

Strengthen PCAOB’s bargaining position

Given that the U.S. has a vibrant short-selling industry to keep listed companies in line, it is understandable that some observers would object to a forceful and disorderly delisting that could inflict big losses on those holding U.S.-traded shares. But the choice is not between doing nothing and delisting all Chinese firms. The more likely outcome of the new U.S. law is that it will strengthen the PCAOB’s bargaining position vis-à-vis foreign authorities.

Because many U.S.-listed Chinese firms are a dynamic part of China’s economy, one should not discount the possibility that the country’s regulators will accede to their U.S. counterparts’ requests for accounting documents sometime over the next three years, before the first delisting under the law could begin.

China may withdraw its majority state-owned firms from the U.S. market, but many private-sector companies would likely remain. Better yet, many more Chinese firms may opt for a U.S. listing precisely because it enables them to signal the credibility of their financial disclosures.

A U.S. listing has always been attractive to firms seeking visibility and foreign currency. The new law won’t diminish this. By enhancing the perceived quality of financial disclosures, listed firms may command a higher stock price, thereby reducing their costs of capital. When that happens, U.S. investors, financial institutions, and Chinese private-sector firms will all stand to gain.

Shang-Jin Wei, a former chief economist at the Asian Development Bank, is professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Source: www.marketwatch.com