In May 2026, a ruling from the Beijing Financial Court temporarily halted China Minsheng Banking Corp., Ltd.'s (600016) efforts to recover a massive 2.4 billion yuan debt from Oceanwide Holdings.

Around the same time, a devastating gas explosion occurred at the Liushenyu Coal Mine owned by Shanxi Tongzhou Group. Notably, just months before the accident, the mine's substantial equity had been pledged to the Taiyuan branch of Minsheng Bank.

On one side is old debt left by a long-standing founding shareholder; on the other is a sudden "black swan" event encountered while operating in a local industry. While their causes and natures differ, both incidents point to a common issue: the potential risk control challenges a large joint-stock bank may face during an economic cycle.

**The 2.4 Billion Yuan Legacy Debt: A Case Closed** On May 26, 2026, the Beijing Financial Court issued an enforcement ruling, concluding the current execution proceedings for the financial loan contract dispute between Minsheng Bank and Oceanwide Holdings.

This "case closed" ruling means that while Minsheng Bank won the lawsuit legally, in reality, there is almost no hope of recovering the debt in the short term. The principal amounts to 2.4 billion yuan, with total interest and penalties nearing 3.2 billion yuan (interest, penalties, and compound interest alone exceeded 770 million yuan as of October 2024). This is because the debtor lacks sufficient executable assets.

Corporate records show Oceanwide Holdings' total unfulfilled enforcement amount now exceeds 6.5 billion yuan, with a non-performance rate as high as 73.45%, indicating severely depleted asset liquidity.

This large non-performing loan traces back to nearly three decades of ties between Minsheng Bank and the Oceanwide group. When Minsheng Bank was founded in 1995, Lu Zhiqiang, the controlling shareholder of Oceanwide Holdings, was a core founder. At its IPO in 2000, the Oceanwide group held a 9.42% stake, making it the second-largest shareholder.

For years, Oceanwide remained a top-ten shareholder, with Lu Zhiqiang serving long-term as vice chairman, creating a deep "shareholder-bank" bond.

Against this backdrop, in October 2020, Oceanwide Holdings successfully obtained 2.7 billion yuan in financing from Minsheng Bank's Beijing branch for a four-year term. Collateral included 5.53 billion shares of its Wuhan company, the Wuhan Center Tower under construction, and office properties at Shenzhen Oceanwide City Plaza.

Even when risk signals were emerging in November 2021, Minsheng Bank still approved a unified credit line of 21.605 billion yuan for the Oceanwide Holdings group. By then, Oceanwide's 4.1% stake in Minsheng Bank was fully pledged.

However, the business world offers no permanent safe harbor. Since 2020, Oceanwide's liquidity crisis erupted fully. Its subsidiary, Minsheng Trust, was implicated in the Wuhan Jinhuang "fake gold case" involving over 4 billion yuan. Coupled with the real estate downturn, the company incurred cumulative losses exceeding 34 billion yuan from 2020 to 2022.

By Q1 2026, Oceanwide's asset-liability ratio had soared to 248%, indicating technical insolvency.

Minsheng Bank's response to its old shareholder's plight was not swift, with risk exposure lagging. It even extended the loan during this period.

It wasn't until October 12, 2024, when the 2.7 billion yuan financing finally matured, that the situation became clear. Oceanwide had only repaid 300 million yuan, with the remaining 2.4 billion yuan principal and interest overdue. Minsheng Bank then formally initiated legal recovery proceedings.

On August 29, 2025, the Beijing Financial Court issued a first-instance judgment in favor of Minsheng Bank. It confirmed the bank's priority claim rights over the Wuhan Center Tower under construction (with a cap of 640 million yuan), multiple land parcels at Wangjiadun Airport (with caps of 1.66 billion yuan and 170 million yuan, etc.), and the 5.53 billion pledged shares.

However, during the prolonged litigation and negotiations, Oceanwide's total litigation amount exceeded 54 billion yuan. Its core assets were repeatedly seized, and its H-shares in Minsheng Bank were forcibly used to offset other debts, reducing its stake to below 5%.

When Minsheng Bank applied for enforcement in March 2026, it faced a nearly depleted entity. Judicial auction data showed that a 10.86% stake in Wuhan Central Business District, a key collateral asset with an appraisal value of 3.935 billion yuan, failed to sell in multiple auctions even after the starting price was reduced to 2.203 billion yuan.

The Oceanwide case reflects a simple truth: when credit decisions are influenced by long-term shareholder relationships and timely intervention is lacking when risks emerge, even the thickest financial cushion can be exhausted.

**Pledges Before the Mine Disaster** If Oceanwide's issue represents a delayed reaction to credit risk amid long-term shareholder ties and a real estate downturn, the Shanxi mining disaster happening around the same time presents a completely different risk scenario.

On May 22, 2026, a gas explosion at the Liushenyu Coal Mine owned by Shanxi Tongzhou Coking Coal Group Co., Ltd. resulted in 82 fatalities and 2 missing persons.

Authoritative media investigations revealed the mine had severe issues, including underreporting the number of underground workers, providing inaccurate maps, and illegally opening hidden workfaces.

A concerning detail is that just five months before the tragedy, on January 5, 2026, Tongzhou Group had pledged equity in Liushenyu Coal Industry valued at over 115 million yuan to Minsheng Bank's Taiyuan branch. On the same day, equity in another group subsidiary, Anshen Coal Industry, valued over 54 million yuan, was also pledged to the bank. Looking back ten days further, on December 25, 2025, shareholder Ren Tiezhu pledged 110 million shares of Tongzhou Group to the same branch. The密集 and substantial pledges in a short period indicate a deep credit relationship at the time.

Using equity in high-risk enterprises as collateral inevitably raises questions: Did the bank strictly assess the safety and compliance of these underlying assets during pre-loan reviews?

In fact, the隐患 at Liushenyu Mine were not new. Classified as having high gas and coal-and-gas outburst risks, it was listed on the "2024 National List of Production Mines with Severe Hazards" by the National Mine Safety Administration. Over the past five years, the mine was repeatedly penalized by regulators for issues like失效 of emergency stop protection for aerial passenger devices and workers not wearing proper attire. In 2025, it was directly fined for illegally setting up hidden workfaces.

Furthermore, the parent company, Tongzhou Group, was fined 230,000 yuan and had illegal gains confiscated by the Changzhi Market Supervision Bureau in May 2023 for unauthorized LNG filling and sales without a permit.

Faced with a company repeatedly penalized for safety management and compliance issues, Minsheng Bank's Taiyuan branch still accepted the equity pledge and extended the loan. This naturally raises questions about the sufficiency of its non-financial risk assessment.

These phenomena suggest a possible disconnect between the bank's credit policy transmission and its grassroots execution. Financial reports show Minsheng Bank increased credit to the mining industry in recent years: mining loan balances were 69.034 billion yuan at end-2023, briefly reduced to 64.345 billion yuan (1.45% of total) in 2024, and rebounded significantly to 72.224 billion yuan (1.63% of total) by end-2025. Additionally, non-performing loans in this sector amounted to 1.223 billion yuan at end-2025, with a 1.69% NPL ratio.

In the process of supporting local industries and pursuing credit scale, Minsheng Bank's Taiyuan branch, with assets over 134.3 billion yuan, may not have prioritized assessing non-financial risks like environmental protection, safety, and governance. The Liushenyu tragedy prompts further reflection: when a loan's repayment保障 is based on assets with major compliance隐患 and life safety risks, how much真正的风控安全边际 remains?

**Triple Pressure: NPLs, Overdues, and Provisions** Ultimately, whether it's Oceanwide's large不良 or the impact of the Tongzhou mine accident, the effects must be reflected on the books.

On the surface, Minsheng Bank's asset quality appears generally stable: the NPL ratio was 1.49% at end-2025, slightly decreasing to 1.46% by end-Q1 2026.

However, beneath the seemingly平稳 data lie structural劣变 concerns. While the reported NPL ratio for the real estate sector dropped from 5.01% in 2024 to 3.61% in 2025, this was largely due to significant book disposals. Meanwhile, NPL pressure is扩散 in实体 industries and retail.

In 2025, its wholesale and retail NPL ratio climbed from 1.44% to 2.27%, and the leasing and business services ratio rose from 0.34% to 0.82%. More突出 was the unsecured credit card透支 NPL ratio, which increased significantly from 3.28% to 3.87%. This indicates economic下行 pressure is gradually传导 from real estate to commercial entities and individual retail.

Secondly, there is a degree of deviation between overdue loans and non-performing loans. According to the 2025 annual report, the bank's total overdue loans reached 95.8 billion yuan, accounting for 2.16% of total loans and advances.

More critically, loans overdue for over 90 days totaled 68.34 billion yuan (including 29.07 billion overdue 3 months to 1 year, 31.66 billion overdue 1 to 3 years, and 7.61 billion overdue over 3 years). In contrast, the bank's recognized total NPLs for the same period were only 66.15 billion yuan. The deviation rate between loans overdue over 90 days and NPLs reached 103.3%.

Regulatory requirements原则上 dictate that loans overdue over 90 days should be classified as non-performing. The fact that overdues exceed NPLs suggests the bank's risk classification may be more lenient than实际情况, meaning the reported NPL ratio might not fully capture potential bad debt risks.

Furthermore, the scale of special-mention loans, the "reservoir" for potential NPLs, continues to rise. At end-2025, Minsheng Bank's special-mention loans stood at 121.2 billion yuan, accounting for 2.74%. By end-Q1 2026, they further increased to 124.54 billion yuan, accounting for 2.75%.

Combining the 1.46% NPL ratio with the 2.75% special-mention ratio, the bank's广义 "problem asset" ratio reached 4.21% in Q1 2026.

Against the backdrop of a weak macroeconomic recovery, this over-100-billion-yuan pool of special-mention assets acts like a堰塞湖悬在头顶, exerting continuous pressure on the downward migration of asset quality.

Finally, to应对 asset quality pressure, the bank has set aside substantial provisions, significantly eroding profits.

In 2025, Minsheng Bank's credit impairment losses reached 53.95 billion yuan, a sharp 18.6% year-on-year increase. Operating profit for the same year was 32.84 billion yuan. The规模 of credit impairment losses far exceeded operating profit, becoming a key variable affecting profitability.

Entering Q1 2026, impairment provision pressure persisted, with单季 credit impairment losses at 13.89 billion yuan, an increase of about 28% from 10.86 billion yuan in Q1 2025.

Despite投入大量利润 into write-offs and disposals (cumulative disposal of NPLs reached 72.004 billion yuan in 2025), the provision coverage ratio仅维持在 142.04%,微降至 141.94% by end-Q1 2026. Capital markets are highly sensitive. Minsheng Bank's长期 valuation at the lower end among A-share joint-stock banks directly reflects market concerns over the above issues.

By late May 2026, Minsheng Bank's A-share price hovered around 3.50 yuan, approaching its 52-week low, with a year-to-date overall change of approximately -7.8%.

Behind this疲软走势 are明显倒挂的 valuation metrics: Minsheng Bank's current net asset value per share is as high as 13.14 yuan, but its dynamic price-to-book ratio is merely 0.27x, and its dynamic price-to-earnings ratio is as low as 3.36x.

This means investors are only willing to trade at less than 30% of its book asset value.

This significant valuation discount is not only at the lower end among listed banks but also reflects capital's避险 choice.

These numbers直观地 reflect the capital market's attitude. A net asset value per share over 13 yuan对应 a stock price below 3.60 yuan, and a total market cap exceeding 150 billion yuan appearing relatively thin against trillion-yuan级别的 asset规模. Behind this, the market is expressing a concern with real money: the asset quality on the books may not have fully bottomed out.

As the first nationwide joint-stock commercial bank primarily initiated by private enterprises, Minsheng Bank has contributed significantly to the real economy and private enterprises over the past nearly three decades. However, with economic cycle shifts and a tightening regulatory environment, the旧模式 of relying on deep ties with major shareholders and pursuing rapid规模扩张 faces increasing challenges. The 2.4 billion yuan legacy from Oceanwide and the issues exposed in the Tongzhou mine pledge are现实注脚 of this transition. Currently, the over-100-billion-yuan in special-mention loans and持续的减值压力 indicate the bank is in a critical period of risk clearance and动能转换. Management has proposed to "压实 the primary responsibility of the first line of defense and gradually strengthen贷中 and贷后 management." What truly matters is whether these requirements can penetrate every branch and whether the bank can truly move beyond依赖 on the old model.