Evergrande May Be Facing a Funding Squeeze

Stories appeared Thursday in China talking about (and showing a picture of) a purported letter from Evergrande Real Estate Group (3333 HK) to the Guangdong government dated 24 August asking for assistance in restructuring. The letter is reported to have said that its cashflow would be endangered because of a need to repay RMB 130 billion to strategic investors by end January 2021 if Evergrande did not achieve a backdoor listing of its principal mainland subsidiary Hengda Real Estate (which it has been trying to do for three years by injecting Hengda into Shenzhen-listed Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Real Estate & Properties Group Co. Ltd.), and such asset sales and lack of ability to raise debt would impair the smooth functioning of the real estate and loan market. The letter asks for assistance in moving forward the listing plan, despite the fact that this would break the informal ban on listing new real estate companies on local exchanges.

I refer to media reports about this story in Bloomberg, Caixin Global, Reuters, and others about the purported letter.

Evergrande issued a SOLEMN DECLARATION via the HKEX Friday night.

The story introduced a fair bit of volatility in trading Friday 25 September 2020. The shares fell early, rose to be +6% on the day, then fell sharply - at one point -14.6% on the day.

194.7 million shares traded. That is the highest in more than 3 years, and represents over 13% of the Real World Float of the company. The stock ended down 9.5% on the day.

China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group (708 HK) was down 13% on Friday. The whole China real estate developer sector listed in Hong Kong fell in a sea of red. Bloomberg reported the dollar bonds of Evergrande were the worst performer in the Bloomberg Barclays Asia Dollar Bond index. And the domestic bonds fell sharply, with a yuan bond due 2022 falling 18% to RMB 77.7 and a 2024 dropping 30% to 65.9 yuan, with trading reportedly suspended.

The company came out again on Friday to say that business was doing OK. But clearly, some people see an issue.

Much more below the fold.