A lot of people these days are looking very carefully at where local Chinese funds are investing. Yesterday I wrote about CIC, China’s sovereign fund, and what sort of opportunities it was focusing on. The big news there was that CIC did not expect to be making any significant overseas equity purchases.

This blog post, commenting on a Bloomberg article, caught my eye today:

China Life, one of the largest companies in the country, is getting frankly a bit sick with the rollercoaster that is Chinese equities. The funny thing is when stocks were going up 100% in a year it was not an issue, but now after a recent 200% gain, a 20% drop makes them take the high road and away from those stinky stocks that dare to go down. (a new concept to investors in China apparently). On a more serious note, this could be an interesting foreshadow of things to come . . .

Later in the post, reference is made to a statement by someone at China Life saying that overseas banks look like a very attractive investment at the moment. This is exactly what some folks were expecting CIC to do. The question is what sort of reception would China Life and other companies with large pools of capital get when they show up with their cash in hand? We already know the nervousness that surrounded speculation of CIC investment, but will private companies, or listed companies with government equity holding, be greeted with the same suspicion as were CNOOC and Huawei?