Some of China’s largest resources corporations and shipbuilders are searching for higher returns in the unregulated lending industry as their core businesses struggle with overcapacity and an overall slowdown in economic growth in the country.
Analysts have flagged the rapid growth of entrusted lending among large companies, mainly state-owned miners and heavy manufacturers, as a worrying trend and a potential contributor to China’s bad-debt problem.
“We believe that these non-financial [state-owned enterprises] do not have the expertise to operate like a bank and evaluate the creditworthiness of the lender, and it is likely that these loans would become non-performing as the economy slows further,” Chua Han Teng, an analyst at Fitch’s BMI Research, said in a report.