A Chinese property magnate has rejected accusations of illegal financing, insisting that profits from selling 3D-printed houses to Russia will enable him to pay off the 30 per cent annual returns he promised investors.
China has been plagued by illegal financing schemes in recent years, fuelled by investor appetite for alternatives to low-yielding bank deposits, an overheated property market and the volatile stock market. Real estate developers have borrowed from grey-market lenders as banks moved to reduce their exposure to property.
Watching, a news website part-owned by Alibaba Group, reported last week that Zhuoda New Materials Technology, a unit of Zhuoda Group, had raised money from 400,000 investors in northern China’s Hebei province by selling financial products promising annual returns of 20-30 per cent for a four-year investment.