CHINA plans to merge three of the country’s biggest bad debt managers into China Investment Corp. (CIC), the country’s sovereign wealth fund, Xinhua reported Sunday, citing unidentified industry insiders. The merger is part of a plan to reform financial institutions, Xinhua said in a short report, without providing additional details. The extent of the transfer of China Cinda Asset Management Co., China Orient Asset Management Co. and China Great Wall Asset Management Co. wasn’t clear in the report. The Ministry of Finance is the largest shareholder of the three bad debt managers, China Fund News reported. The three asset managers have dozens of branches across provinces and assets totaling billions of yuan. Bloomberg reported in May last year that China was considering transferring the State’s stakes in the three bad debt managers to Central Huijin Investment Ltd., an unit of CIC. The government established CIC in 2007 to diversify foreign exchange holdings and seek maximum returns, its website showed. It has registered capital of US$200 billion. China created Cinda, Great Wall, Orient and Huarong to buy bad loans from banks in the aftermath of the late 1990s Asian financial crisis. (SD-Agencies) | 