By Clare Jim
HONG KONG (Reuters) -China Evergrande Group, the world’s most indebted property developer, posted a combined loss of $81 billion in 2021 and 2022 and a rise in total liabilities in its long overdue results on Monday.
The developer defaulted in late 2021 and has been struggling to complete projects and repay its many suppliers and creditors. After announcing an offshore debt restructuring plan in March, it is now garnering support to complete the process.
With one of the largest debt piles in the country, Evergrande’s debt problem has rippled through China’s property sector, a pillar of the world’s second-largest economy, leading to a string of defaults and uncompleted homes across the nation.
Shares of Evergrande listed in Hong Kong have been halted from trading since March 21 last year, pending the 2021 and 2022 financial results and an investigation into 13.4 billion yuan of seized deposits of a unit, among others.
The shares will remain suspended, Evergrande said in the filing on Monday. The company risks being delisted if its shares remain suspended for 18 months.
Evergrande reported a net loss of 476 billion yuan ($66.36 billion) and 105.9 billion yuan ($14.76 billion) for 2021 and 2022, respectively, versus a net profit of 8.1 billion yuan in 2020 when its operation was normal.
The huge losses were caused by return of lands, write-down of properties, losses on financial assets and finance costs, it said.
Its total liabilities amounted to 2.4 trillion yuan last year, an increase of 23% from 2020, while total assets were worth 1.8 trillion yuan, down 20%.
Revenue dropped 55% to 230.1 billion yuan in 2022 from 2020.
Its auditor, Prism Hong Kong and Shanghai Limited, however said in the report it does not express an opinion on Evergrande’s financial statements, because it has not been able to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to provide a basis.
The big losses were in line with analyst expectations as Evergrande’s 2021 and 2022 contracted sales fell to 443 billion yuan and 31.7 billion yuan respectively, versus 723 billion yuan in 2020.
Charles Macgregor, head of Asia of Lucror Analytics, said he was not optimistic about Evergrande’s results. “Results are meaningless if the business model is broken,” he added, speaking ahead of the announcements.
In a separate filing, Evergrande said convening hearings for its offshore debt restructuring schemes will be held in a Hong Kong court on July 24, and a Cayman Islands court on July 25, for creditors to consider and approve the proposal.
The developer has yet to disclose the latest figures of creditor support after it extended the deadline for receiving an incentive to May.
Evergrande, needing more than 75% in creditor value in each debt class to pass the plan, said in April that 77% holders of class-A debts and 30% holders of class-C debts had submitted their respective support, among others.
($1 = 7.1729 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Clare Jim; Editing by Himani Sarkar, David Evans, William Maclean)
