Some time in the coming months, China Huarong Asset Management, set up in 1999 to deal with the bad debts of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China before its listing, will go public, following the example in 2013 of China Cinda, the corresponding bad debt arm of China Construction Bank. At the Boao Forum in China at the end of March, Lai Xiaomin, head of Huarong, described it as “the unsung hero” of the financial system, which helped to stabilise banks’ balance sheets by taking their troubled exposures.
But Huarong is more than the carp of the Chinese financial landscape, taking bites of the rubbish that comes its way. Today it is a conglomerate with banks, a securities business and other arms. As a prelude to becoming a public company Huarong some months ago sold stakes to a mix of international and domestic financial groups with the blessing of the Ministry of Finance, still the biggest shareholder. Not long ago the timing for Huarong — and all financial institutions — could not have seemed more auspicious. But now investors are focused on the growing risks in China’s financial system.
There is concern about the bad debts in the banking system and a corporate sector that has borrowed way too much money, some of it in cheap dollars that no longer appear the bargain they were at the time.