Country Garden Holdings missed a coupon payment on a yuan bond for the first time, adding to the woes of the Chinese developer as it faces a lawsuit seeking its liquidation offshore, reports Caixin. The builder’s main onshore unit hasn’t fully prepared a RMB 96 million ($13 million) coupon that came due on Tuesday for a 4.8% yuan bond maturing in 2026, the company said in a response to Bloomberg. There is a 30 trading-day grace period for the payment, it added.
“Sales recovery has fallen short of expectations, so fund allocation remains under pressure,” Country Garden said in the statement. “The company will make all efforts possible to raise cash during the grace period, including through sales, asset disposal and expenditure cuts.”
Country Garden shook markets when it defaulted on its dollar debt in October but has so far managed to avoid doing so on its local-currency obligations. In September, it extended more than RMB 10 billion of yuan bonds by three years. After that, it paid several coupons and in December paid off an RMB 800 million note.