CHINA’S trust industry staged a comeback in the fourth quarter of 2015, helped by the temporary rebound in the stock market from its summer rout.

    Trust companies’ assets rose 4.4 percent to 16.3 trillion yuan (US$2.5 trillion) at the end of December, compared with three months earlier, according to data released by the China Trustee Association yesterday.

    That reversed a 1.6 percent decline in the third quarter, the period when shares were tumbling, which represented the first decline in trust industry assets under management since at least 2010.

    Other than the third-quarter decline, trust firm assets have been on an upward trend despite a clampdown by the government on certain sections of the industry, which have been blamed for providing some of the unregulated leverage that fueled China’s stock market boom last year.

    The government has cracked down on the use of so called “umbrella trusts” by investors trying to bypass restrictions on borrowing to purchase shares.

    Trusts had 1.1 trillion yuan in equity holdings at the end of December, up 23 percent from three months earlier, while bond holdings rose 5 percent to 1.55 trillion yuan. (SD-Agencies)