China

Junk-bond issuance by China’s riskier companies has nearly ground to a halt, creating more challenges for the country’s real-estate developers that need to roll over more than $40 billion in dollar debt by the end of next year, the Wall Street Journal reported. Sales of new junk bonds in dollars by Chinese borrowers this month have fallen by about 90% from their five-year average to $352 million as of Wednesday, Dealogic data shows, reflecting just two deals from smaller developers.

Chinese regulators have told developers they need to meet all their debt obligations including offshore bond payments after an unexpected default cast doubt on the integrity of the market, Bloomberg News reported. Officials from the National Development and Reform Commission and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange told developers at a meeting in Beijing on Tuesday that they must make payments on time if possible. Any developer that can’t meet its debt obligations must inform regulators immediately.

Modern Land defaulted on a bond payment, the latest Chinese property developer to do so, adding to worries about the wider impact of the debt crisis at behemoth China Evergrande Group, and weighing on shares in the sector, Reuters reported. Modern Land (China) Co Ltd said in a filing on Tuesday that it had not repaid principal and interest on its 12.85% senior notes that matured on Monday due to "unexpected liquidity issues". The bond has outstanding principal of $250 million.

Luckin Coffee Inc. reached a $175 million settlement of shareholder class-action claims that the Chinese rival to Starbucks fraudulently inflated its share price by falsifying revenue, Reuters reported. Lawyers for the shareholders called the all-cash settlement, filed on Monday night, an “excellent result,” citing Luckin’s liquidation proceeding in the Cayman Islands and its related filing for protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

Creditors of China's HNA Group have voted to approve the company's restructuring plan, according to a court comment posted on HNA's official WeChat page on Saturday, Reuters reported. The court in China's southern island of Hainan, where the group is based, said the vote had been conducted in accordance with the country's bankruptcy laws. HNA was placed in bankruptcy administration in February and a working group was created by the Hainan government to address the company's liquidity problems.

China Evergrande Group said that construction is progressing at some of its residential projects in southern China, as the highly indebted developer tries to stave off collapse and deliver the homes it has promised to more than a million people, the Wall Street Journal reported.

China Evergrande, the troubled property giant that is teetering on the edge of collapse, appears to have bought itself a little more time, the New York Times reported. On Friday, the world’s most indebted property developer made an $83.5 million interest payment to bondholders, according to Securities Times, an official newspaper. The outlet, which is backed by People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, didn’t offer further details. The payment came with just one day left on a 30-day grace period to avoid a default.

China Huarong Asset Management Co.’s shareholders approved a plan to sell assets and raise capital at its long-delayed annual general meeting, two months after the financial giant unveiled a state-led rescue package that ended speculation over its fate, Bloomberg News reported. Shareholders passed resolutions to extend the period in which it can issue the remaining 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) of its capital bond quota and grant the board a mandate to issue up to 20% of its outstanding shares, Huarong said in a filing Thursday after the meeting at its Beijing headquarters.

China Evergrande Group has secured more time to pay a defaulted bond, financial provider REDD reported on Thursday, offering rare respite to the developer even as a debt crisis in the broader property sector deepened with more defaults, Reuters reported. News of the three month-plus extension came a day after Evergrande scrapped a deal to sell a 50.1% stake, worth $2.6 billion, in a property services unit that could have eased some immediate pressure on the firm.

The pain is spreading in the market for Chinese junk bonds. Dollar-bond defaults from Chinese property developers are rising quickly as the country’s housing market slumps, and the problem could worsen as a wave of debt from the beleaguered industry comes due in the coming months, the Wall Street Journal reported. Real-estate developers dominate China’s international high-yield bond market, making up about 80% of its total $197 billion of debt outstanding, according to Goldman Sachs.