When the China Insurance Regulatory Commission announced last week that it was seizing Anbang Insurance Group Co., the only surprise was that it took so long, a Bloomberg View reported. Last year, the company was told to sell its overseas assets, its founder was placed behind bars, and banks were ordered to stop offering its products. So what, if anything, does this latest incident tell us about China's economy and its attempt to crack down on debt? Anbang is often referred to as an insurance company, but this is misleading.

HNA Group, the heavily leveraged Chinese conglomerate, has turned to private equity company Pacific Alliance Group for finance amid pressure to raise cash and cut its debt, the Financial Times reported. Hainan-based HNA, which started as an airline company before expanding into finance, announced on Wednesday that it had pledged about 1.4bn of shares — amounting to HK$3.1bn ($396m) — from one of its subsidiaries, to borrow from privately owned PAG Holdings.

S&P Global Ratings stepped up its scrutiny of HNA Group Co. by cutting its credit assessment for the second time in less than three months as the debt-laden Chinese conglomerate renewed a defense of its "very healthy" finances, Bloomberg News reported. Late Tuesday, S&P said it lowered HNA’s unofficial credit score by two notches to ccc+, or seven levels deep into junk territory, citing the group’s deteriorating liquidity profile.

Chinese deal makers that racked up debts for overseas deals and are now reversing course to pay down borrowings have attracted the attention of restructuring specialists, Bloomberg News reported. As President Xi Jinping steps up leverage curbs, borrowing costs in China have jumped. The nation’s most high-profile deal makers including HNA Group Co. have come under mounting regulatory scrutiny, and have been selling assets as they try to rein in borrowings.

Companies controlled by Chinese local governments have avoided defaulting on their bonds so far. They will not continue to be so lucky, the Financial Times reported. Officials are taking a regulatory axe to the implicit supports that have allowed hundreds of local government financing vehicles to stagger on.

Wall Street bankers gorged on fees from HNA Group Co. as they helped the debt-laden Chinese conglomerate clinch $55 billion of acquisitions around the world. They’re set for another bonanza as the company offloads some of those same purchases to stave off a liquidity crisis, Bloomberg News reported. HNA doled out as much as $200 million in advisory fees during a three-year investment spree, according to Freeman & Co.

S&P Global Inc. plans to offer its ratings services in the Chinese domestic bond market, with an eye on buying a majority stake in a local agency or setting up a new entity there to do so, its chief financial officer said. The world’s largest credit rater’s plan to assess the yuan-denominated bonds of Chinese firms follows the People’s Bank of China’s decision last year to allow international ratings companies to set up their own businesses in the nation, according to CFO Ewout Steenbergen, Bloomberg News reported.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has agreed to buy a stake in Dalian Wanda Group Co.’s cinema operator as billionaire Wang Jianlin’s real estate-to-entertainment conglomerate turns to another Chinese tech giant and a government-backed company for investments totaling about 7.8 billion yuan ($1.2 billion), Bloomberg News reported. Alibaba is to pay 4.68 billion yuan for a 7.66 percent stake in Wanda Film Holding Co., making the e-commerce giant the second-biggest shareholder, Wanda Film said Monday in a regulatory filing.

China's Alibaba became the biggest shareholder in India's leading online grocer BigBasket after a $300-million funding round, stepping up its rivalry with Amazon in the country, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Alibaba invested $146 million in the grocer, subscribing to compulsorily convertible preference shares, BigBasket said in a filing to Indian regulators.

A rare event in a corner of China’s credit market is fueling concern that more defaults are looming, adding to strains sparked by the government’s crackdown on leverage, Bloomberg News reported. A timber company in the country’s northeast decided this week not to pay off perpetual bonds despite having an option to do so. That was a first for a junk-rated issuer of such securities in China. Firms that raise money with perpetuals never have to pay off the principal, in theory.