Here we go again. As our MainFT colleagues report:
Shares in Country Garden slumped to a record low on Monday after the Chinese developer suspended trading in at least 10 of its mainland bonds, spurring a wider sell-off in property-linked stocks.
The company, formerly the largest developer in China by sales, missed international bond payments last week in a sign that a two-year liquidity crisis across the real estate sector was threatening to escalate.
Shares in the group fell as much as 18.4 per cent in Hong Kong following a statement released over the weekend that said several bonds issued by the company and its subsidiaries would be suspended from trading this week.
Country Garden has become a focal point of China’s latest deflation-related wobble. The housebuilder this month missed a $22.5mn coupon payment on two of its offshore bonds and has a 30-day grace period expiring on September 6 to make good.
Even if Country Garden makes the late payment, it would only be delaying what appears to be inevitable. The company’s sales to July were down 34 per cent year on year — before the wave of bad publicity that’s likely to make homebuyers even more wary about private developers finishing projects — and it has Rmb14.4bn ($2bn) of debt maturing within the next six months, as well as a $1.9bn offshore bond.