CIC may invest in US mortgages

China's $200-billion sovereign wealth fund is set to invest up to $2 billion in US mortgages as it eyes a property market recovery, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said yesterday.

China Investment Corp (CIC) plans to invest soon in US taxpayer subsidized investment funds of toxic mortgage-backed securities, which it sees as a safer bet than buying into the $700-billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), also backed by the US Treasury.

Under the Public-Private Investment Plan (PPIP) launched earlier this year, the US government plans to seed a number of public-private investment funds that would combine taxpayer money with private capital to buy as much as $40 billion in toxic securities from banks.