China Trust Products Gone Awry Evoke Soros Crisis Echoes

The story of how a 3 billion-yuan ($496 million) Chinese trust investment wound up on the brink of default shows what billionaire investor George Soros has called the “eerie resemblances” between the 2008 global financial crisis and the nation’s debt market.

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s most profitable bank, is rejecting entreaties to compensate holders of the financing, which was structured by China Credit Trust Co. to raise funds for a coal miner. New York-based Moody’s Investors Service says it is typical of financial products that have kept debt off banks’ balance sheets. The borrower, Shanxi Zhenfu Energy Group, collapsed in 2012 after leading shareholder Wang Pingyan was arrested for illegal deposit-taking. Payment on the three-year, so-called Credit Equals Gold No. 1 product is due Jan. 31.