"The Story of Rose" exploded, how can financial institutions catch this splash of wealth?

Our reporters Hao Yajuan and Zhang Rongwang report from Shanghai and Beijing

A line in the play, "Who is there in Beijing", was used by cultural tourism and tourism all over the world to make a transition video, and "The Story of Rose" became a phenomenal hit drama this summer.

The preparation and filming of every film and television drama is inseparable from financial support. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward clear requirements in terms of cultural construction and financial development, which has become an important guideline for the development of cultural industries and cultural finance in the mainland.

Relevant statistics show that in recent years, the overall number of financing and financing amount in the cultural industry investment and financing market have declined, and banks have gradually become the main channel for financing the cultural industry.

Professor Bu Wei of the School of Economics and Management of Beijing Jiaotong University told the "China Business Daily" reporter that the cultural industry has the characteristics of "light, thin, short, small and weak", and the main problem facing the current development is still difficult to finance, expensive and slow financing, which requires the cooperation of the competent departments of the cultural and tourism industry, financial regulatory departments, financial institutions and other departments to improve the risk management system of the cultural and financial industry, strengthen financial risk education and management awareness, and establish and improve the internal supervision system.

Customized financial solutions for banks

According to the "Report on the Development of Cultural Finance in China (2023)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), jointly organized by the National Finance and Development Laboratory, Beijing Liyan Institute of Finance and Development, and Beijing Cultural and Creative Board Development Co., Ltd., the activity of China's cultural industry investment and financing market will decline in 2022, and the overall number of financing and financing amount of the cultural industry investment and financing market will decrease by 50.1% and 82.5% year-on-year, respectively. Banks support the development of culture-related industries and have gradually become the main channel for financing the cultural industry.

The reporter learned that Bank of Shanghai has provided financial support for mainstream film and television dramas and stage plays such as "Flowers", "Ice Hunting", "Sleepless Night" and "Time Journey". According to the relevant person in charge of the People's Square Branch of the Bank of Shanghai, the bank mainly innovates cultural financial services from three aspects:

In terms of mechanism and system, the People's Square Sub-branch and Guangzhong Road Sub-branch of Bank of Shanghai have been recognized as the city's cultural and creative characteristic sub-branches by the Municipal Cultural Establishment and other relevant departments, cultivating and forming a cultural and financial professional service team, focusing on serving customers in the cultural industry for a long time, gathering resources and financing channels, and forming a cultural and creative resource ecosystem.

In terms of products and services, in response to the difficulty of asset-light financing for cultural enterprises, Bank of Shanghai has successively launched exclusive financial products such as "Cultural and Creative Insurance" and art pledge financing, providing efficient and suitable financing service solutions for cultural enterprises according to different categories such as guarantee, mortgage, credit and scenario.

In terms of group resources, as one of the first members of the Shanghai Digital Cultural Creativity and Metaverse Industry Alliance, Bank of Shanghai gives full play to the advantages of commercial investment banking resource endowment, and empowers the industry, academia, research and application of cultural metaverse and the implementation of projects through customer resource matching, landing scenario promotion, and supporting financial services.

He Wei, a partner at Beijing Haotian Law Firm, pointed out that banks can conduct more in-depth research and research on the operating characteristics, business rules, risk characteristics and profit models of the cultural industry, and provide the following financial support:

For cultural enterprises to obtain financing in the form of traditional financial support, such as when cultural enterprises apply for credit, banks can consider providing support policies such as deferred repayment, interest reduction and refinancing. At the same time, banks can carry out financial product innovation according to the characteristics and development stages of cultural enterprises, such as traditional financing, equity financing and venture capital products for cultural enterprises in the growth stage with fixed assets and growth income, bond financing, asset securitization and other services for mature cultural enterprises with clear profit models and stable income, or through the "bank + fund" or "bank + trust" method, the establishment of asset management plans for cultural enterprise investment projects.

"In addition, banks can strengthen their ability to evaluate cultural intangible assets, thereby improving the effectiveness and feasibility of cultural intangible assets as financing pledges. In addition, data asset pledge financing is an emerging financing model for asset-light enterprises in recent years, in which enterprises set up security interests such as pledges after pricing their legally held data assets with economic value through the method of "entry into the table + financing", so that enterprises can obtain more liquidity. "What is that?

Cultural industry: asset-light, high-risk, long-term

"Most of the enterprises in the cultural industry have the characteristics of light assets, high risk, long cycle, etc., and there are high market risks and uncertainties, which makes traditional financial institutions face greater challenges when financing them. Asset-light means that enterprises lack fixed assets that can be pledged, and high risk and long cycle increase the uncertainty of investment, making financial institutions more cautious when lending. Bu Wei pointed out.

Liu Yingzi, a partner of Beijing Haotian Law Firm, also mentioned in an interview with reporters that the cultural industry is risky and unstable, and the cultivation, operation, creation and growth cycle of cultural enterprises and cultural products are long, resulting in a long return on investment cycle, so the cultural industry is not the most popular investment industry type among investors. In addition, the cultural industry is mainly based on intangible assets, lacking effective financing collateral, and the value evaluation standards of intangible assets are not uniform.

Based on this, how can financial institutions support the cultural industry? The report points out that the future development of cultural finance needs to focus on the following four aspects:

The first is the specialization of cultural financial institutions. One of the most striking features of the mainland's cultural finance sector is the emergence of a number of cultural financial institutions with a franchised nature, such as cultural franchise sub-branches, cultural financial leasing companies, cultural financing guarantee companies, etc., but they are still insufficient. We should seek new breakthroughs in cultural and creative banks, film finance companies, cultural insurance companies, etc., so as to realize the effective implementation of cultural financial services.

The second is to improve the cultural and financial infrastructure. Among them, the urgent need to break through is the cultural industry credit management system and cultural assets evaluation system.

The third is to develop the equity investment market in the cultural industry. It is relatively difficult for cultural enterprises, especially private cultural enterprises, to be listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, and the emergence of the Beijing Stock Exchange should be a very good opportunity. Relevant departments should actively communicate with the securities regulatory authorities to strive for policies and promote the listing of more cultural enterprises. As a cultural enterprise with the potential to be listed on the New Third Board, it should also actively do a good job in standardizing the work.

Fourth, develop the regional economy of culture and finance. Some regions have had successful experience in promoting the coordinated development of cultural finance and science and technology finance, inclusive finance, and free trade zone finance, such as Nanjing, Hubei, Kaifeng and other places. On the one hand, we can take advantage of the opportunity of the state to promote regional financial reform, collaborate and innovate, and jointly introduce relevant policies such as "integration of culture and science", "integration of culture and popularization" and "integration of culture and green" to promote the innovation and development of cultural finance; On the other hand, cities that can promote the development of cultural finance should take financial support for the development of cultural industries as the theme of regional financial reform experiments, and include them in the overall planning of regional financial reform and innovation experiments.

Taking banks as an example, He Wei said that in areas with more cultural resources and a good policy environment, banks can set up cultural finance franchise institutions to strengthen the service attributes of cultural finance and improve the financing efficiency of cultural enterprises; Banks can use big data integration and sharing technology to provide diversified financing services such as prepaid accounts and accounts receivable for upstream and downstream enterprises in the cultural industry, and explore and broaden integrated application scenarios such as "culture + technology + finance" and "big data + credit + credit loans". Banks can strengthen communication with financial supervision and cultural and tourism departments, gain an in-depth understanding of the information characteristics and financing needs of cultural enterprises, and strengthen the linkage with guarantees, re-guarantees, investment, trading platforms and other institutions, so as to provide more extensive and in-depth financial services to cultural enterprises.

(Editor: Zhu Ziyun Review: Xia Xin Proofreader: Yan Yuxia)