Evergrande extends deadline for debtholders to agree to restructuring plan

Evergrande has extended a scheme designed to persuade creditors to agree to its long-awaited offshore restructuring plan, reflecting challenges for the property developer as it seeks to recover from its default 18 months ago.

The company, whose cash crunch in late 2021 contributed to a sector-wide liquidity crisis that continues to drag down growth in China, said earlier in April that a major group of investors had backed its plan to exchange their holdings for new notes and instruments.

But this week Evergrande said in a stock exchange filing that it did not have the support of enough creditors to meet the 75 per cent threshold required to put the restructuring into practice, forcing the company to extend an April deadline until mid-May.

The extension of the compensation deadline marks the latest delay in a heavily opaque and slow restructuring process. Evergrande, which had $300bn in liabilities at the time of its failure and owes about $20bn in international bonds, is one of several Chinese property developers undergoing restructuring processes and negotiations with investors.

It faces a winding up petition in Hong Kong courts, which has been adjourned until late July, while its chair and formerly China’s richest man, Hui Ka Yan, has come under pressure to sell his assets.

The company plans to replace existing holdings with various notes, including securities that can be exchanged for shares in its listed Hong Kong property management and electric vehicle subsidiaries.

“Creditors will need to take a leap of faith in the equity upside for these entities,” analysts at research firm CreditSights said earlier in April.

Among class-A creditors who hold US dollar bonds, approval for the restructuring plan is 77 per cent, said the company, adding that the extension came at the “request and suggestion” of other creditors.

The liquidity crunch across the Chinese real estate sector has shown some signs of easing but home prices and transactions remain under pressure. Beijing has so far largely focused on the completion of unfinished residential construction projects, and has through state-owned banks unveiled credit support only for developers it deems to be “high quality”.