Who needs IMF when you can sell bad debts online?

Hong Kong

THIRTY years ago, China may have turned to global development banks for help cleaning up surging bad debts. In 2015, it's tapping Internet billionaire Jack Ma. His Alibaba Group Holding will cooperate with the biggest state-owned loan restructurer to dispose of more than four billion yuan (S$869 million) of non-performing assets on its online shopping platform Taobao. China Cinda Asset Management, which announced the tie-up with Mr Ma last week, saw profits rise 32 per cent to a record in 2014.

China's non-performing loans climbed by an unprecedented 140 billion yuan in the first quarter to 982.5 billion yuan, the most since 2008 and almost the size of Vietnam's economy. UBS Group and Standard Chartered are among companies that bought stakes in Cinda before its 2013 public share sale as a stepping stone into the distressed asset market. Cinda's market value of US$23 billion is now larger than KKR & Co's US$19.1 billion.