Home Headline Chinese property developer misses bond repayment of $179 million

Chinese property developer misses bond repayment of $179 million

Another Chinese property developer said it had defaulted on a bond repayment, citing liquidity problems amid a government crackdown on the debt-laden sector

China’s real estate industry — a key growth driver in the world’s second-largest economy — has cooled in recent months after Beijing tightened home buying rules and launched a regulatory assault on speculation.

Read also: Oil, stocks plummet in Asia and Europe as new variant emerges

The moves have created headaches for several major developers, notably China Evergrande, the country’s second-largest by volume that is weighed down by billions of dollars in debt.

On Monday, Hong Kong-listed Sunshine 100 China Holdings said it had missed a Sunday deadline to make $179 million in principal and interest payments on a 10.5 percent bond.

The default was due to “liquidity issues arising from the adverse impact of a number of factors including the macroeconomic environment and the real estate industry”, the company said in an exchange filing.

Sunshine 100 has repeatedly struggled to meet its debt obligations this year and also defaulted on a bond repayment in August.

The company now has $385 million of outstanding dollar notes, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Evergrande — which is drowning in $300 billion of debt — has so far managed to avoid default, but it has dollar bond coupons worth $82.5 million in total due Monday, when a 30-day grace period ends, according to Bloomberg.

On Friday, embattled founder Xu Jiayin was summoned by officials after the company released a statement warning it may not have enough money to “continue to perform its financial obligations”.

The Guangdong provincial government later said it would send a working group to Evergrande to “supervise and promote enterprise risk management”.

Evergrande’s shares in Hong Kong closed down 19.6 percent on Monday, while Sunshine 100 ended the day down more than 14 percent.

Rival developer Kaisa last week said it had failed in a bid for a debt swap that would have bought it crucial time to pay back some of its bonds.

Contact Us

Generalist media, focusing on the relationship between Portuguese-speaking countries and China.

Plataforma Studio

Newsletter

Subscribe Plataforma Newsletter to keep up with everything!