Hong Kong court orders liquidation of China Evergrande

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Evergrande is the world’s most indebted property developer and one of many property firms that ran into trouble when Chinese regulators cracked down on excessive borrowing in the real estate sector.

Transcript

00:00 This has been going on for years actually. Evergrande first defaulted in 2021, about

00:08 a year after the Chinese government started to crack down on enormous levels of borrowing

00:14 in the Chinese property sector. Now this has been in the courts for some time with Evergrande

00:19 trying to find a new debt restructuring plan that could see the business continue forward.

00:25 There was a bit of a reprieve. It was given late last year, but it's come back to court

00:29 today and the judge Linda Chan has said that Evergrande had made a lack of progress in

00:36 preparing a viable restructuring proposal and that it consequently it was appropriate

00:43 for the court to order that the company be wound up saying that after so many months

00:48 it was time to say enough is enough. So this is very significant news for Evergrande. It

00:56 is the most indebted property developer in the world owing more than $300 billion.

01:04 So what's due to happen next Kathleen?

01:07 Well the matter's back in court this afternoon. There are a couple of things that could happen.

01:11 The liquidators obviously need to be appointed. They could order another debt restructuring

01:18 plan if they think that there's enough assets to do so. Evergrande is also able to appeal

01:24 this judgment. So it does look that this could continue on for some months yet, but it could

01:30 potentially have enormous implications for the Chinese economy. Of course, China's economy

01:36 has been struggling now for some time after coming out of very strict COVID restrictions

01:44 just over a year ago. Now Evergrande, as I say, is the most indebted property developer,

01:51 but there are several others who are in real trouble, including the country's largest property

01:56 developer, Country Garden. So unfortunately this is not a good sign for an economy which

02:02 largely has been driven through real estate growth.

02:06 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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