But the technique is mainly used by individuals concealing money gained through bribery, embezzlement or the stripping of the assets of state corporations, said a corporate lawyer in Beijing.
Simultaneously "the great assets of state" have been deployed to introduce the east London tech community to corporate and venture capital big-hitters, with regular Tech City breakfasts at 10 Downing Street and events at Buckingham Palace and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The return on assets of state-owned companies falls remorselessly, and is now less than three-fifths that of China's foreign-funded private companies.
Back in 2005, when he began working at Harvey Law Group in Beijing, he was struck by how often a family's wealth began with the transfer of the assets of state-owned enterprises to private ownership in the 1990s.
Some turn out to have broken the law, keeping their assets out of state bonds.
Last year, the Treasury Department froze the assets of the state energy and chemical company, Belneftekhim.
Last November, the Treasury Department froze the assets of the state energy and chemical company, Belneftekhim.
Zamtel's new owners also gained the use, as part of the deal, of the fiber optic assets of the state electricity company Zesco.
Today, after more than six decades in power, the lines between the assets of the state, the ruling party and its leaders are blurred.
The oligarchs of the Putin era, on the other hand, are themselves assets of the state, administering business fiefdoms that also happen to pay handsomely.
Communism abolished private morality in Russia, the collapse of it abolished public restraint, and the assets of the state were going to end up in somebody's hands fairly cheaply.
