The question is whether it is an isolated case," Kowalczyk said. "I would be surprised if it is an isolated case because the same banks were probably selling the same products to other Chinese companies."
Many banks devise such contracts for corporate clients. Citic Pacific did not identify who had sold it the currency contracts.
The Citic Group, a giant Beijing-based state investment company that holds 29 percent of the shares in Citic Pacific, said it had made a $1.5 billion standby loan available to Citic Pacific.