China Evergrande Group, the giant property developer that defaulted on its U.S. dollar bonds more than a year ago, has struck a crucial deal with a group of bondholders, bringing its prolonged debt negotiations close to the finish line, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Guangzhou-based developer became the highest profile victim of the Chinese government’s deleveraging campaign more than two years ago, which fueled a sharp slowdown in the property sector and ultimately led to dozens of dollar bond defaults.

China Evergrande Group on Wednesday announced plans for the restructuring of its $22.7 billion in offshore debt, which could set a template for distressed rivals and shape investor sentiment on the country's embattled property sector, Reuters reported. The world's most indebted property developer gave creditors a basket of options to swap their debt into new bonds and equity-linked instruments backed by the group and its two Hong Kong-listed companies, Evergrande Property Services Group and Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday sued Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun, accusing him and other defendants of illegally selling crypto securities and scheming to artificially inflate trading volume in crypto assets, Reuters reported. Beginning around August 2017, Sun and his companies Tron Foundation Limited, BitTorrent Foundation Limited and Rainberry Inc engaged in a scheme to distribute billions of crypto assets known as Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT), the SEC said.

The world’s most indebted developer has reached an agreement with a group of major creditors for a plan to restructure its offshore debt, just ahead of a key winding-up petition hearing Monday, Bloomberg News reported. An ad-hoc group of offshore bondholders has expressed support for China Evergrande Group’s plan, and a restructuring support agreement was being drafted. The builder sweetened its preliminary proposal including terms of a debt-to-equity swap option and the amortization arrangement in a debt extension. Evergrande declined to comment on Sunday.

China's central bank said on Friday it would cut the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves for the first time this year to help keep liquidity ample and support a nascent economic recovery, Reuters reported. Chinese leaders have pledged to step up support for the world's second-largest economy, which is gradually rebounding from a pandemic-induced slump after coronavirus-related curbs were abruptly lifted in December.

The Beijing office of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has been fined $30.8 million for failing to adequately audit a Chinese state-owned asset management company whose former head was sentenced to death on corruption charges, Reuters reported. The office also was ordered to suspend operations for three months for mishandling audit and other work at China Huarong Asset Management Co. in 2014-19, the Ministry of Finance announced Friday. Deloitte was fined 211.9 million yuan ($30.8 million), the ministry said.

China will set up a financial watchdog run by the Communist Party, state media reported on Thursday, as part of a broad reorganisation of governing bodies set to give the ruling party direct control and supervision over financial affairs, Reuters reported. The creation of the Central Financial Commission will see the dissolution of the state-run Financial Stability and Development Committee (FSDC), a powerful body set up in 2017 and headed by former Vice Premier Liu He to curb risks in China's complex and often opaque financial system.

A business tycoon long sought by the government of China and known for cultivating ties to Trump administration figures including Steve Bannon was arrested Wednesday in New York on charges that he oversaw a $1 billion fraud conspiracy, the Associated Press reported. Guo Wengui and his financier, Kin Ming Je, faced an indictment in federal court in Manhattan charging them with various crimes, including wire, securities and bank fraud. Guo was charged in court papers under the name Ho Wan Kwok. U.S.

China will steadily reduce the number of high-risk institutions to help fend off systemic financial risks，its central bank said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Reforms of problematic small and mid-sized financial institutions have made key progress and illegal financial activities have been curbed, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement after its annual meeting on financial stability. The central bank will continue to follow the guidance of "overall planning and coordination, differentiated policies and precise bomb disposal", it said.

China's economic activity picked up in the first two months of 2023 as consumption and infrastructure investment drove recovery from pandemic disruption, despite challenges of weak global demand and a persistent downturn in the property sector, Reuters reported. China's abandonment of COVID-19 controls late in 2022 has reinvigorated an $18 trillion economy that has suffered one of its lowest growth rates in nearly half a century, with analysts expecting momentum to improve further in coming months.