Property developer China Evergrande Group has been ordered to liquidate by a Hong Kong court, bringing an end to the yearslong saga of a company whose default rippled through the world’s second-largest economy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The liquidation order came despite an 11th-hour push by the company’s creditors to reach a deal over the weekend, according to people familiar with the matter. It comes more than two years after the company defaulted on its dollar bonds, becoming one of the first dominoes to fall in China’s beleaguered real-estate sector.

An estimated 233 home developers in China filed for bankruptcy last year, according to the China Real Estate Association, the Taiwan News reported. The highest number of bankruptcies was in Zhejiang Province, with 36 cases accounting for 15.45% of the nation’s total. Hunan and Guangdong provinces were second and third respectively. However, the report added the number of bankruptcies for 2023 was the lowest since 2020. There were 408 home developers who filed for bankruptcy in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, 343 in 2021, and 308 in 2022.

China’s deflation pressures are likely to continue for at least another six months on weak demand and as the property crisis continues to sap confidence within the economy, Bloomberg News reported. A measure of economy-wide prices called the gross domestic product deflator is expected to decline for at least two more quarters, according to 12 of 19 economists in a new Bloomberg survey. That gauge — which measures the difference between nominal and real GDP growth — has already fallen for the last three quarters, and a continued drop through June would mark the longest streak since 1999.

China will halt the lending of certain shares for short selling from Monday, the securities regulator announced Sunday, in a move to support the country’s slumping stock markets, Bloomberg News reported. Strategic investors won’t be allowed to lend out shares during agreed lock-up periods, the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange said in separate releases following the China Securities Regulatory Commission’s statement.

A key offshore bondholder group of China Evergrande (3333.HK), opens new tab plans to join a petition to liquidate the developer at a hearing in a Hong Kong court on Monday, Reuters reported this week. The bondholder group owns more than $2 billion in offshore notes guaranteed by Evergrande and its support to a winding-up petition against the world's most indebted developer increases the chances of an immediate liquidation order from the court, lawyers in the industry said.

China Evergrande said on Thursday one of its units had entered a deal to sell its entire stake in Shantou Hengmeng Property Development for 137.6 million yuan ($19.20 million), Reuters reported. Hengda Real Estate Group Yuedong, a unit of the property giant, holds a 65% stake in Shantou Hengmeng, with the rest being held by Redleaf Trading, its Australia-based joint venture partner. Evergrande expects to gain about 304 million yuan from the sale, which will be used to pay off its debt worth 376 million yuan, owed to Shantou Hengyao Property Development.

Chinese leaders have signaled deepening concerns about the economy by unleashing a burst of measures aimed at reviving growth and steadying markets, the Wall Street Journal reported. The response—triggered most recently by a stock-market selloff—shows new urgency and marks a shift from only a week ago, when Chinese authorities sought to project confidence in the economy.

A key offshore bondholder group of China Evergrande plans to join a petition to liquidate the developer at a hearing in a Hong Kong court on Monday, Reuters reported. The bondholder group owns more than $2 billion in offshore notes guaranteed by Evergrande and its support to a winding-up petition against the world's most indebted developer could increase the chances of an immediate liquidation order from the court, lawyers in the industry said.

China’s real-estate crisis has dragged down the economy, caused massive layoffs and pushed multibillion-dollar companies to the point of collapse. Economists think it is about to get worse, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Sales of newly built homes in China fell 6% last year, returning to a level not seen since 2016, according to China’s statistics bureau. Secondhand home prices in its four wealthiest cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen—declined by between 11% and 14% in December from the year before, according to the broker Centaline Property.

China said it will cut the reserve requirement ratio for banks within two weeks and hinted at more support measures to come, an unusually early disclosure that shows mounting urgency across President Xi Jinping’s government to shore up the economy and halt a $6 trillion stock-market rout, Bloomberg News reported. The RRR — which determines the amount of cash banks have to keep in reserve — will be lowered by 0.5 percentage points on Feb.