Most industry people know about Hikvision's $3 billion debt financing from last year but many are likely not aware of how massive debt expansion is going on throughout China.
A new FT investigation on Hikvision's home province, Zhejiang, shines light on this:
The local [Zhejiang] government leans on local banks to keep the credit flowing in, companies are taking on ever-larger amounts of debt to service a growing loan burden, while the bankers reckon the real level of bad loans is as high as 30 per cent of total lending.
Eventually, this will end badly for everyone, including Hikvision. How bad and how soon are the key questions.