Fosun Group, one of China’s most acquisitive conglomerates, is preparing to sell as much as 40bn yuan ($6bn) in assets as it focuses on raising its credit rating to above junk.
After announcing more than $15bn in overseas acquisitions since 2010, the group plans to disclose the disposals between now and the end of 2017, Liang Xinjun, chief executive officer of flagship unit Fosun International, said in an interview aired on Bloomberg Television yesterday.
“We will sell assets to repay debts,” Liang, 47, said in Shanghai. “We have ample capability to get investment grade ratings. So either strategically, or tactically, Fosun is crystal clear that this has become our strategy.”
Fosun’s dwindling appetite for foreign trophies – it owns Club Med, Wall Street’s 28 Liberty building and Cirque du Soleil – makes it an outlier at a time when the likes of China National Chemical Corp and Dalian Wanda Group Co are pushing Chinese companies to their biggest-ever year of overseas acquisitions. Rather than joining the fray, Fosun is focusing on getting leaner before its next phase of growth.
Fosun’s dollar bonds due in 2020 saw their biggest increase since January, according to prices compiled by Bloomberg. Shares of Fosun International and Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group rose in early trading in Hong Kong before closing lower.
Liang is one of the three founders running the insurance-to-mining conglomerate - the other two being chairman Guo Guangchang and president Wang Qunbin - who spoke on July 24 with Bloomberg in a wide-ranging interview on topics ranging from their ambitions of turning the company into a $100bn behemoth to the impacts of a possible Donald Trump presidency and Brexit. Guo, whose brief disappearance in December triggered a rout of Fosun shares, signalled the group will move away from centralised leadership.
As to the disposals, Liang pointed to about 30bn yuan to 40bn yuan in assets such as properties, bonds, and stock holdings that could be sold off. Fosun could part with more than that if it chose to because the company had 118bn yuan of assets available for sale at the end of 2015, of which 102bn yuan were parked in listed shares and bonds.
So what will they sell? The executives declined to say but Fosun’s focus is shifting toward health care, finance and leisure. That means businesses such as steel and mining - which accounted for 73% of profit when the company went public in 2007 - are ripe for consideration to be sold.
Last year, Fosun sold stakes in Nanjing Iron & Steel Co and cashed out of Shenzhen-listed Focus Media Information Technology. The group is also pushing for initial public offerings of its units, including the tourism business that operates Club Med, Cirque du Soleil and UK travel group Thomas Cook, according to Liang.
Behind the motivation to sell are debt ratings. Fosun International is rated three levels below investment grade at Moody’s Investors Service and two notches under the threshold at S&P Global Ratings. Emerging from the junk stigma, which would benefit its key insurance business, has become such a priority for Fosun that the group elevated it last year as one of its top five strategies, according to Liang.
“It’s still too early to say whether Fosun’s asset-sales plan will be positive for its rating,” said Lawrence Lu, an analyst in Hong Kong at S&P. “It will depend on how much it ends up selling and how much the company uses to pay down debt.”
Moody’s and S&P have reason to voice concerns. As Fosun snapped up assets such as resort operator Club Mediterranee, Cirque du Soleil and US insurer Ironshore Inc from 2013 to 2015, the Chinese conglomerate’s debts bloated. At Fosun International, they expanded 67% to 115bn yuan in 2015, 43% of which is due by the end of December.
That’s high enough for Fosun International to have more debt than equity. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which Fosun often compares itself to, had a debt-to-equity ratio of 33% last year.
Also, Fosun International’s net debt was more than 20 times its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation last year. That’s more than double the average multiple for Chinese issuers with the minimum investment grade at Moody’s and S&P, according to a sample of 27 companies compiled by Bloomberg. As to acquisitions, Fosun isn’t giving up on them, just limiting them to industries it defines as “health, wealth and happiness,” according to Liang. Recently, it agreed to buy Indian drugmaker Gland Pharma through its pharmaceutical unit (health), offered to invest in Banco Comercial Portugues (wealth) and purchased the Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club (happiness).
Based on announced purchases in 2016, Fosun is headed for its lowest year for mergers and acquisitions since 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s a contrast to the record $152bn in overseas purchases completed or announced by Chinese companies this year.