Evergrande leaves more creditors empty handed
Creditors to heavily indebted Chinese property giant Evergrande have not received around $150m in debt repayments that were due on Monday.
The latest round of repayment miss was the third in as many weeks, increasing the likelihood that Evergrande will collapse soon.
Evergrande has an October 18-19 debt payment deadline that will push into official default if it does not meet.
“It is pretty serious now and it looks like it is going to be a long and drawn out process,” said Peter Kisler, fund manager at Trium Capital.
Evergrande is estimated to owe $305bn in liabilities, which it racked up to fuel rapid expansions across China. It claims to have built homes for around 12m people in the country.
Evergrande’s problems have spread to China’s wider real estate sector, with a string of embattled developers facing down looming debt repayment deadlines.
Refinitiv data shows there is at least $92.3bn worth of Chinese property developers’ bonds coming due next year.
Fantasia, a rival developer, also missed a payment recently, while Modern Land and Sinic Holdings are pushing to extend deadlines that would still most likely be classed as a default by the main rating agencies.
Chinese authorities have moved to stem the potential fallout of an Evergrande collapse by urging state-owned firms to buy its assets.
Evergrande recently sold a chunk of its business to Hopson, another real estate developer, raising $5.1bn.