China's Warren Buffett called one of country's fastest growing industries 'basically a scam'

Billionaire Guo Guangchang, known as China's Warren Buffett, says the country's fast growing peer-to-peer lending industry is "basically a scam."

Guo, China's 17th richest person with a net worth of $5.6 billion, made the comment in answer to a question at a post-earnings briefing for his conglomerate Fosun.

Fosun's Chief Financial Officer, Robin Wang, had said "we never invested in any P2P projects," until Guo jumped in to add that most peer-to-peer lending was "rogue," according to a report by Bloomberg News.

The growth of peer-to-peer lending in China has been meteoric. By the end of 2015, lending topped $150 billion or 982 billion yuan, which is four times the 253 billion yuan amount recorded in 2014.

Guo's comments follow a crackdown by Chinese authorities on P2P lending, after discovering 1,778 "problematic" lenders, according to Bloomberg. Last month, China limited the amount an individual can borrow to a total of 1 million yuan ($150,000) peer-to-peer lending sites, with corporate borrowers capped at 5 million yuan.

Lenders were also banned from taking general retail deposits and selling wealth-management products to customers.

China's peer-to-peer lending industry was also the source of its biggest-ever Ponzi scheme. In December, Ezubo, a lender, was found to have defrauded more than 900,000 people out of the equivalent of $7.6 billion.

Guo, the chairman of Fosun Group, one of China's biggest privately-held conglomerates, went missing for several days while participating in an investigation with Chinese authorities into market volatility at the end of last year.

Fosun has been building up its portfolio of foreign assets, buying French holiday company Club Med in 2015. It also owns a stake in British tour operator Thomas Cook.