Chinese property developers Evergrande and Kaisa have defaulted, Fitch says

Failures to repay investors are piling up in China’s property sector.

An aerial view of construction sites and new residential developments in the Qinghai province, China. Picture: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

Fitch Ratings said China Evergrande Group and a second big property developer, Kaisa Group Holdings had defaulted after missing US. dollar bond payments.

Kaisa, which in 2015 became one of the first Chinese developers to default abroad, has defaulted again after not repaying a $US400 million bond that came due this week, Fitch said. Evergrande earlier this week missed a final bond-interest payment deadline, something Fitch also said Thursday amounted to a default.

Failures to repay investors are piling up in China’s property sector, as real-estate companies buckle under the strain of falling home sales, government curbs on borrowing, and a bond-market selloff that has all but shut the market for new deals.

In recent months, several smaller companies such as Fantasia Holdings, Modern Land and Sinic Holdings have also defaulted.

Shenzhen-based Kaisa is one of the Chinese property sector’s biggest offshore borrowers after Evergrande, with about $US10.9bn of dollar bonds outstanding as of the end of June.

On Thursday, Fitch downgraded Kaisa’s credit rating to “restricted default,” a level assigned to borrowers who default on debt payments but haven’t yet made a bankruptcy filing or entered into other formal winding-up procedures. It assigned the same grade to Evergrande.

Kaisa didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fitch said that Kaisa had failed to repay funds due Tuesday, and there was no grace period for the payment. Fitch said that also triggered events of default on Kaisa’s other dollar bonds, which could become due immediately, if trustees or holders of more than 25 per cent of those notes declared a default.

Kaisa has already begun talks with creditors holding a large chunk of its international debt, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The bondholders, who are being advised by Lazard, have proposed a roughly $2bn financing package to Kaisa with multiple options including equity rights, convertible bonds, and other instruments, the person said. Kaisa and Lazard have agreed the terms of a nondisclosure agreement that would allow the investment bank to better assess the company’s cash shortfall, the person added.

These creditors hold a majority of Kaisa’s just-matured bonds, and total bonds with a face value of about $US2.5bn, while holders of another $US1bn of debt have asked to join or support the consortium, the person said.

Last month, Kaisa had proposed exchanging the $US400m of debt for new notes due in June 2023, but failed to reach the minimum 95 per cent threshold it had set for the deal to proceed. The company is also nearing the end of a 30-day grace period for more than $US88m of coupon payments that were due last month but that it failed to pay on time.

Kaisa’s credit ratings had already been slashed to levels that indicate high risk, although other major credit-rating companies haven’t yet downgraded it to a defaulted rating.

The developer said last month that it plans to speed up disposals to meet investor obligations, adding that it would try to sell assets in Shenzhen, Shanghai and other places.

Kaisa’s Hong Kong-listed stock has been suspended since Wednesday. A Kaisa dollar bond due in 2024 was bid at 34 cents on the dollar on Thursday, according to Tradeweb.

The Wall Street Journal