Securities Offering Takes Aim at Bad Home Loans

(Beijing) — China's first asset-backed securities (ABS) for home mortgages were scheduled to be offered Friday by China Construction Bank (CCB) through a pilot project aimed at diversifying the nation's debt market.

CCB said it planned to sell 1.56 billion yuan ($233 million) worth of five-year notes on China's interbank bond market.

The notes to be offered to domestic institutional investors would help CCB manage a pool of non-performing personal mortgages that a subsidiary, CCB Trust Co., said was worth 29.9 billion yuan in early July. The pool includes 7,980 bad loans to home buyers in 82 cities nationwide, the trust said.