Crisis-hit developer Evergrande reports $4.5bn loss – BBC News

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  • By Annabelle Liang
  • Business reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Crisis-hit Chinese developer Evergrande has posted a 33bn yuan ($4.5bn; £3.6bn) loss for the first six months of the year, in the latest sign of trouble in the country’s property market.

It comes as the heavily-indebted firm’s shares are due to resume trading in Hong Kong from Monday.

Evergrande shares have been suspended from trading since March last year.

Earlier this month, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in the US to protect its assets there.

The results were an improvement from a 66.4bn yuan loss seen a year earlier.

The company added that its revenue for the first six months of this year had jumped by 44% to 128.2bn yuan from a year earlier. However, its stockpile of cash fell by 6.3% over the same period.

Problems in China’s property industry have added to concerns about the post-pandemic recovery of the world’s second largest economy.

Earlier this month, Country Garden, which is also one of China’s biggest property developers, warned that it could see a loss of up to $7.6bn (£6bn) for the first six months of the year.

Rating agency Moody’s downgraded the company’s rating, citing “heightened liquidity and refinancing risks”.

China’s real estate industry was rocked when new rules to control the amount of money big real estate firms could borrow were introduced in 2020.

Evergrande, which was once China’s top-selling developer, had racked up debts of more than $300bn as it expanded aggressively to become one of the country’s biggest companies.

Evergrande has been working to renegotiate its agreements with creditors after defaulting on debt repayments.

Chapter 15 protects the US assets of a foreign company while it works on restructuring its debts.

Evergrande’s financial problems have rippled through the country’s property industry, with a series of other developers defaulting on their debts and leaving unfinished building projects across the country.

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