China listed firms dumping money into WMPs

As China’s economic growth cools, Chinese publicly listed firms are increasingly trying to boost their incomes by buying so-called wealth management products (WMPs), Caixin reports. WMPs are higher-yield, short-term investments typically sold by commercial banks. In the 12 months ending Wednesday, 9,641 publicly traded companies listed on China’s A-share market moved 887.2 billion yuan ($128.5 billion) of capital into such financial products, according to data compiled by Chinese financial information provider Wind. That was a whopping near-46% jump over the same year period ending May 10 of last year. Six of the A-share listed companies each bought more than 10 billion yuan worth of WMPs. The companies included Tianjin Tianhai Investment, Yanzhou Coal Mining and Beijing Sanyuan Foods. The run-up in purchases of WPAs is happening at a time of growing concern about bubbles in the economy, largely due to a binge on credit over the past two years. This has sent property prices to a record high.