A BIOTECH company in China defaulted on a loan tied to an asset management product, after regulators last month moved to tighten supervision and break an implicit guarantee that has driven investment into such vehicles.

Shandong Longlive Bio-technology Co. failed to repay the first installment of a 227 million yuan (US$34 million) loan from Zhonghai Trust Co. on Dec. 7, according to a statement to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

The majority of the 138 million yuan missed payment was packaged into an asset management product issued by Datong Securities Co.

In its statement, Shandong Longlive referred to an online media report in which it didn’t directly identify the asset management product had been sold over the platform run by online lender Lufax Holding. The report is “basically true,” the Shandong Longlive statement said.

“The scale of the whole Longlive incident isn’t very big,” said Lu Pin, a Beijing-based analyst at Citic Securities. “The reason why it’s gaining so much attention is that it has to do with Lufax, where most of the investors are individuals with a low-risk bearing capacity,” he added.

Some 118 investors failed to receive an interest payment on the asset management product linked to the Shandong Longlive loan, Caixin magazine reported Monday.

Shandong Longlive said in its statement that a total of 4.41 million yuan in its bank accounts had been frozen after it missed the loan payment.

(SD-Agencies)