Institutions in Play: Who is Paying the Price of China's Bank Reforms?
In an emerging economy like China's, institutions are not yet institutions. They are often the playthings of politics and bureaucratic rivalries. China's banking system is a case in point. Since 1949, banks have bounced around China's institutional landscape as the government tried out first one then another banking model. This mattered little to the outside world until the last decade when reform brought banks to the international capital markets in search of massive amounts of new capital. This did not, however, stop institutional in-fighting. It spread so that today the domestic struggle over bank roles, responsibilities and ownership has expanded to involve international markets, investors, regulators and the reputations of market professionals at a growing cost to the Chinese government and to the banks themselves.
Carl Walter brings to JPMorgan over 20 years of professional experience in a number of senior banking positions across Asia and primarily in China. Currently Mr. Walter is Managing Director, JPMorgan China.
Prior to joining JPMorgan, Mr. Walter was a Managing Director and a member of the Management Committee at China International Capital Corporation ("CICC"), a joint venture of Morgan Stanley and China Construction Bank. He played a key role in the execution of CICC's international and domestic equity and fixed income transactions.
While at Credit Suisse First Boston Mr. Walter was responsible for organizing the firm's China investment banking team and established its Beijing Representative Office in 1993 serving as Chief Representative. During this time, he was involved in a number of significant equity and debt offerings.
A fluent Mandarin speaker, Mr. Walter received an MA in economics at Beijing University in 1979-80 supported by a grant from National Academy of Science. He received his PhD in Political Science from Stanford University in 1981 and earned his BA from Princeton University. He is also the author of "Privatizing China: Inside China's Stock Markets" which has been published in a Chinese edition "Minyinghua zai Zhongguo".
This event is part of the China and the World series.
Philippines Conference Room
Carl Walter
Carl Walter joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) as visiting scholar with the China Program for the 2021-2022 academic year. Prior to coming to APARC, he served as independent, non-executive Director at the China Construction Bank. He was also previously a visiting scholar with APARC during the winter and spring terms of the 2012–13 academic year after a career in banking spent largely in China.
His research interests focus on China's financial system and its impact on financial and political organizations. During his time at Shorenstein APARC Walter will continue his book project on how fiscal reforms in China have impacted the banking system, the overall economy and the prospect for financial reform going forward.
Walter has contributed articles to publications including Caijing, the Wall Street Journal and the China Quarterly. He is also the co-author of Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundations of China's Extraordinary Rise (2012) and Privatizing China: Inside China's Stock Markets (2005).
Walter lived and worked in Beijing from 1991 to 2011, first as an investment banker involved in the earliest SOE restructurings and overseas public listings, then as chief operation officer of China's first joint venture investment bank, China International Capital Corporation. Over the last ten years he was JPMorgan's China chief operating officer as well as chief executive officer of its China banking subsidiary.
Walter holds a PhD in political science from Stanford University, a certificate of advanced study from Peking University and a BA in Russian Studies from Princeton University.
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