Evergrande
bondholders left in the dark as crucial deadline passes
Indebted Chinese property developer faces imminent
default on $84m offshore coupon payment
The crisis at Evergrande shook global markets this
week and raised concerns about the health of China’s property sector © Roman
Pilipey/
Thomas
Hale, Tabby Kinder and Hudson Lockett in Hong Kong and Sun Yu in Beijing
YESTERDAY
https://www.ft.com/content/e7c0f31d-4dff-4992-88e6-a70402b7b4bc
Investors
in an Evergrande offshore bond say they have yet to receive a closely watched
interest payment that was due on Thursday, adding to uncertainty over an unfolding
liquidity crisis at the world’s most indebted property developer.
The $83.5m
payment had a deadline of midnight in New York on Thursday, or noon on Friday
in Hong Kong. Two people with direct knowledge of the matter said that no
payment had been received on Friday in Hong Kong.
The
property group, which has not made a statement on the repayment, has a 30-day
grace period before any failure to pay officially results in a default.
Evergrande,
which had been widely expected to default for weeks, is at the centre of an
unfolding storm over the health of China’s vast property sector as the
government seeks to crack down on excessive debt.
Its woes
shook global stock and commodity markets this week ahead of the impending
payment deadline, as traders weighed the implications of a slowdown across a
real estate industry that has anchored China’s economic growth for decades.
Evergrande’s
payment deadline passed as more signs of stress emerged across China’s property
sector. In a letter to the Shaoxing municipal government in eastern Zhejiang
province, the local office of developer Sunac China appealed for “policy
assistance” as it was struggling through what it called a “turning point in
China’s real estate industry”.
“We have
never experienced such a radical change in the external environment,” Sunac’s
Shaoxing office said, pointing to a 60 per cent year-on-year fall in home sales
over the summer.
“The market
is almost frozen,” it added in the letter, which was seen by the Financial
Times. “The radical change in policy and environment has seriously disrupted
our business and made it very difficult to maintain normal operations.”
Two people
familiar with the developer’s struggles confirmed the contents of the letter. One
of the people said it reflected the views of Sunac’s Shaoxing branch but not
the developer’s head office in Beijing.
Sunac did
not respond to a request for comment. The Shaoxing government was not
immediately available for comment.
Evergrande’s
second-largest shareholder, Hong Kong developer Chinese Estates Holdings, said
it was selling down its 6.5 per cent stake in the group and would realise a
large loss.
A municipal
government in central Anhui province also announced that it was reclaiming a
plot of land on which Evergrande had missed payments.
Evergrande,
which faces total liabilities of more than $300bn, warned in August of the risk
of default after a rare public rebuke from Beijing. Falling prices of its debt
helped push yields higher across the $400bn Asian high-yield bond market, where
it is one of the biggest borrowers.
The
dollar-denominated bond with interest due on Thursday has collapsed in price as
investors anticipated a missed payment that would kick off the biggest
restructuring process in China’s financial history. The note, which matures
next year, is currently trading at $0.33 on the dollar.
Many of
Evergrande’s dollar bonds were trading at about 30 cents on the dollar on
Friday, signalling substantial distress, while Hong Kong-listed shares in the
company fell as much as 13.5 per cent on Thursday, bringing them down more than
80 per cent this year. Shares in the company’s electric vehicle subsidiary fell
as much as 22.7 per cent.
“Whether it
gets paid or not will not change any of the uncertainty,” said Michel Löwy,
chief executive of SC Lowy, a Hong Kong-based investment group. “[Unless there
is] some form of central intervention and significant liquidity [is added] to
the group, there has to be a restructuring.”
Evergrande
injected a glimmer of hope into Asia trading on Wednesday when it announced it
had reached an agreement with onshore bondholders for a separate interest payment
due on Thursday on a renminbi-denominated bond. The company did not provide
specific details.
Evergrande
faces other deadlines, including a $45m payment due next Wednesday on a bond
maturing in 2024. It has a total of about $20bn in outstanding debt on
international markets.
Within
China, Evergrande is grappling with its obligations to retail investors in
wealth management products, who last week assembled at its Shenzhen
headquarters to protest, as well as commitments to suppliers and contractors
across its hundreds of development projects in China.
“If
offshore investors get a settlement that’s 10 to 15 cents above the current
trading price, I think people [will] just move on,” said one veteran investor
in Chinese debt, adding that authorities would probably use Evergrande to send
a message to other developers.
CCB
International, the Chinese investment bank, said in a research note that the
risks stemming from Evergrande were “manageable” but added that “contagion risk
has spread from financing to land sales, property sales, project deliveries and
home prices”.
Additional
reporting by Tom Mitchell in Singapore
CHINA
Evergrande confirma dificuldades e falha pagamento de
juros
Empresa chinesa não pagou esta quinta-feira os 71 milhões
de euros em juros que estavam previstos, dando início a sequência de
incumprimentos com consequências ainda incertas para a economia mundial.
Sérgio Aníbal
24 de Setembro de
2021, 10:25
Aquilo que já há
uma semana se temia confirmou-se esta quinta-feira: a gigante imobiliária
chinesa Evergrande falhou o prazo previsto para o pagamento de juros de um dos
seus títulos de dívida, acentuando o clima de tensão que se vive actualmente
nos mercados financeiros.
A Evergrande
tinha de pagar, até ao final de quinta-feira, 83,5 milhões de dólares (cerca de
71 milhões de euros) correspondentes aos juros de um título obrigacionista de
dois mil milhões de dólares. É apenas uma pequena parte das suas dívidas
totais, de cerca de 260 mil milhões de euros, mas a empresa, uma das maiores do
mundo no sector imobiliário, a braços com uma severa falta de liquidez, não
conseguiu fazer face a este compromisso.
Tem agora o prazo
de um mês para o fazer, caso contrário será declarada oficialmente uma situação
de default.
A Evergrande
adoptou nos últimos anos, à semelhança de outras empresas do sector imobiliário
chinês, uma estratégia de pedir emprestado para construir. No entanto,
recentemente, os sinais de esgotamento do potencial de crescimento do mercado
imobiliário na China e as medidas de restrição no acesso ao crédito impostas
pelas autoridades do país colocaram a empresa numa situação
insustentável.
A Evergrande tem,
ao longo das próximas semanas, diversos pagamentos de juros e amortizações de
dívida para fazer e a expectativa de novos incumprimentos é agora extremamente
elevada, especialmente no que diz respeito à dívida colocada junto de
investidores estrangeiros.
Até agora, as
autoridades chinesas têm mantido um silêncio quase total em relação à situação
da Evergrande, sendo apenas dados sinais de que podem querer evitar perdas
significativas para os investidores de retalho domésticos e para os
fornecedores da empresa, algo que teria o potencial de gerar descontentamento
numa parte significativa da população e contagiar o resto da economia. Para
tentar evitar um aumento da instabilidade do sector financeiro chinês, o banco
central tem também vindo nos últimos dias a reforçar as suas injecções de liquidez.
Nos mercados
internacionais, a semana que agora termina foi de perdas acentuadas,
antecipando já um cenário de incumprimento no pagamento das suas dívidas por
parte da Evergrande. Mantém-se contudo a incerteza em relação à dimensão do
contágio que pode resultar do colapso da empresa. Vários analistas têm recusado
a ideia de que se possa estar perante um cenário semelhante ao vivido em 2008
com a falência do banco de investimentos norte-americano Lehman Brothers, em
que as perdas sentidas pelos credores do banco conduziram a que estes, por sua
vez, entrassem em incumprimento com os seus credores, num efeito de dominó que
colocou toda a economia mundial em crise.
Ainda assim,
existe a preocupação de que os problemas da Evergrande sejam o ponto de partida
para uma fase de forte abrandamento na China, que nos últimos anos tem sido o
principal motor de crescimento da economia mundial.
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