China has agreed to place USD $3 billion of its massive foreign exchange reserves with Blackstone, US-based private equity group, signalling Beijing is starting to switch investments from US treasuries into more risky equity holdings, Financial Times reported.
The decision suggests China is testing the water for a much bigger investment in private equity. It could open the floodgates to a tide of money flowing into the sector at the precise moment regulators are becoming concerned it may be overheating.
In unrelated, but also interesting China news:
Li Ka-shing, Asia's richest man, and central bank Chairman Zhou Xiaochuan have warned that a stock market bubble may be building. A more than doubling of the CSI 300 Index in the past six months has made Chinese stocks the world's most expensive, at 43 times reported earnings, according to Bloomberg data.