A group of China Evergrande Group’s EGRNF -7.50% international bondholders threatened to move forward with a legal enforcement plan that could potentially include liquidation of the company’s assets, after being unable to engage substantively with the troubled property developer for months.
Advisers to the group on Thursday released a strongly worded statement accusing Evergrande of withholding crucial information about its liabilities and failing to engage with its creditors despite the company’s recent pronouncements to the contrary. The bondholders, which include global funds, asset managers and distressed investors that hold Evergrande debt, are being advised by investment bank Moelis & Co. and law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
The group “believes it has been left with no option but to seriously consider enforcement actions,” the statement said. It “has received little more than vague assurances of intent, lacking in both detail and substance” from Evergrande. The group has retained Harneys, an offshore law firm, and “is prepared to take all necessary actions to vehemently defend its legal rights and protect its legitimate interests,” the statement added.
The next steps the advisers are considering are accelerating debt, filing a type of bankruptcy document known as a winding-up petition and beginning a liquidation process, according to a person familiar with the matter. Under liquidation, control of the company would shift to a legal controller, subject to court supervision, the person said.
An Evergrande spokesperson declined to comment Thursday. The developer last year hired a unit of U.S. investment bank Houlihan Lokey Inc. as an adviser.
The 25-year-old property giant had amassed around $300 billion in liabilities as of last June, including around $20 billion in outstanding U.S. dollar bonds. Evergrande has struggled to meet its obligations since the summer, and has missed final deadlines for interest payments on several U.S. dollar bonds. All three major credit-rating companies have declared it to be in default.
In early December, Evergrande said it had turned to its provincial government for help in dealing with its liquidity crisis. The government of Guangdong has dispatched a working group to help the company manage its risks, and Evergrande has set up a risk-management committee that includes its top executives and representatives of several state-backed entities.
The company said in regulatory filings in December and January that it planned to engage with its creditors, and that it would work with them to formulate a restructuring plan for its offshore indebtedness. Evergrande also said publicly that it would protect the legitimate interests of the various parties.
The international bondholder group said Thursday that hasn’t happened. “The overriding impression is that contrary to the group’s public words, which may at this point be construed as an attempt to stall any enforcement actions from the creditors, the group has disregarded its offshore creditors and the legal rights of its creditors,” their statement said. Evergrande has also ignored a request to pay the fees of its creditors’ advisers, a standard practice in a restructuring process, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Advisers to the committee of bondholders are concerned that the company might also have additional off-balance sheet debt that it has not disclosed and that it might be in worse financial health than previously thought.
While Evergrande’s international bondholders have been left hanging, the developer has so far avoided defaulting on its yuan-denominated public debt onshore. Last week, Evergrande secured investor backing to delay making payments on one of its onshore bonds.
Write to Anna Hirtenstein at [email protected]
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