By Xie Yu
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Chinese property developer Greenland Holdings Corp said on Monday it was seeking its offshore bondholders’ approval to extend repayment on its bonds due between next month and 2025 by up to two years due to falling sales and poor market conditions.
State-backed Greenland joins a string of Chinese developers that have delayed or defaulted on offshore debt obligations since the second half of last year due to a stifling cash squeeze triggered partly by a regulatory crackdown.
“The Group has been experiencing significant declines in its sales and operations”, mainly due to the COVID-19 situation across China, and the negative market conditions, the issuer, an offshore unit of Greenland said in an exchange filing.
As a result, Greenland will not be able to repay the $370 million bonds due on Nov. 13, and the developer also faces difficulties in repaying other securities on time, it said in the statement.
The developer is looking to extend the November tranche by two years, it said.
Greenland also proposed to extend the maturity of a batch of notes to mature next June by one year and the remaining seven series of bonds by two years.
Greenland has been reeling under financial stress since last year as China’s property sector woes deepened.
In August, it borrowed 3 billion yuan ($411 million) from two state-owned shareholders to help it ensure delivery of homes, a move seen by some analysts that indicated it still had support from the government.
($1 = 7.2970 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Xie Yu; editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Jason Neely)