Distressed asset investing may be “flavour of the month right now,” says Benjamin Fanger, co-founder and managing director of Shoreline Capital, a distressed investment fund based in California. He is not interested in the likely surge in bad loans and fire sales of assets in the US, though. Instead, the fund is one of the few such investment vehicles to specialise in China. “Distressed in the US is very difficult to price at present,” Mr Fanger says.

China may be a difficult place to do business in many ways for foreigners, but distressed securities are relatively simple and uncomplicated. “In China you just have bank loans,” he says.