Having lent an unprecedented $33bn to Chinese companies over the past two years, international bond investors are increasingly contemplating their worst nightmare: the prospect of default.
Like their peers in the equity market, bond investors have been unsettled as a growing number of Chinese companies listed on international stock markets have been accused of fraud.
The biggest example is Sino Forest, a Chinese forestry group with more than $2bn of bonds outstanding. Less than a month ago a short seller called Carson Block accused Sino Forest of being a “Ponzi scheme” that had overstated its assets and bamboozled investors with an opaque web of intermediaries.