Evergrande winding-up hearing adjourned until December
The High Court on Monday gave China Evergrande Group a five-week reprieve to come up with a deal with creditors or face liquidation after the embattled developer said it was working on a revised debt-restructuring plan. The court agreed to further adjourn a hearing to wind up Evergrande to December 4, with Justice Linda Chan saying the next hearing would be the last before a decision is made on liquidating the company. Evergrande needed to come up with a "concrete" revised restructuring proposal before that date, she said, otherwise it was likely the firm would be wound up. Evergrande, which has more than US$300 billion of liabilities, had been working on a US$23 billion offshore debt-restructuring plan which was thrown off course last month when its billionaire founder Hui Ka-yan was confirmed to be under investigation for suspected criminal activities. Due to an investigation into its flagship property unit, Evergrande was barred by mainland regulators from issuing new dollar bonds, a crucial part of the restructuring plan. Evergrande's lawyer told the court on Monday the company plans to "monetise the value" of its two Hong Kong-listed units. Evergrande has reached out to some bondholders with a new restructuring plan in the past two weeks, two sources said. The revised plan would allow bondholders to swap their bonds into equity and bonds tied to two of Evergrande's listed subsidiaries, Evergrande Property Services Group and Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group. Any proposal no longer includes new notes to be issued by China Evergrande, they added. (Reuters)