The China Evergrande Group was a Chinese property developer, and it was the second largest in China by sales.[3] It was founded in 1996 by
Hui Ka Yan (Xu Jiayin). It sold apartments mostly to upper- and middle-income dwellers.[4]
In 2018, Evergrande became the most valuable
real estate company in the world,[6] but by 2021 it had collapsed financially and started the Chinese
property sector crisis. The company eventually filed for
bankruptcy in the United States in 2023,[7] which was followed by a court-ordered liquidation in Hong Kong in January 2024.[8]
History
Initially called the Hongda Group, Evergrande was founded by
Hui Ka Yan in the
southern Chinese city of
Guangzhou in 1996, during a period of mass urbanization in China.[9]
In 2021, the payments Evergrande had to make on its debt started the
Chinese property sector crisis; Evergrande's total debts were estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars. This was one of the reasons for a drop in many
stock market indices on September 20, 2021.[11] At the end of 2021, the Chinese government was reportedly working to restructure Evergrande in order to resolve the crisis.[12][13] The group also sought a moratorium on the early repayment option on one of its yuan-denominated bonds from its bondholders on 7 January 2022.[14]
In 2022, the company announced it would move its headquarters to
Guangzhou due to a need to reduce spending.[15]
In April 2022,
Reuters reported that construction had been started again at many projects[16] and that the company still had liabilities of US$300
billion.
On 17 July 2023, Evergrande made public that it had made a net loss attributable to shareholders of 476 billion yuan (US$66.3 billion) for 2021 and of 105.9 billion yuan (US$14.7 billion) for 2022.[17] The group stated that its total liabilities on 31 December 2022 stood at 2.43 trillion yuan (roughly US$340 billion). Court hearings on the restructuring of the group's debts were to be held in July 2023 in Hong Kong and the Caribbean.[17]
On 17 August 2023, Evergrande filed for
Chapter 15 of the
U.S. bankruptcy code for protection from creditors, with the
U.S. bankruptcy court in
Manhattan.[18] On 28 August 2023, Evergrande stock plunged in Hong Kong as trading resumed after a 17-month suspension, tumbling by 79 per cent to 35 HK cents, as opposed to the pre-suspension price of HK$1.65 on 21 March 2022.[19]
In September 2023,
Bloomberg reported that
Hui Ka Yan (Xu Jiayin), the billionaire chairman of Evergrande, was placed under police control.
Caixin reported that Xia Haijun, an ex-chief executive officer of Evergrande, and Pan Darong, a former chief financial officer, were detained by Chinese authorities.[20]
On 29 January 2024, a Hong Kong-based court ordered Evergrade to liquidate due to a lack of a viable restructuring plan.[21] Trading was halted for stocks in China Evergrande, China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group, and Evergrande Property Services.[22][23]
The Hong Kong court order came after bondholders decided that winding down Evergrande was better than Evergrande's plan to give control of most of the developer to Chinese banks and impose losses on foreign creditors. It was thought by investors that the restructuring plan would cause losses that would have potentially been steep enough that the losses of foreign creditors would be lower if Evergrande liquidated.[24]
The court order allowed liquidators from
Alvarez and Marsal to take over all of Evergrande's subsidiaries around the world so that Evergrande's assets could be sold to repay its debt. However, 90% of Evergrande's assets were in mainland China and most of the assets had already been sold, pledged to Chinese domestic creditors, or frozen by Chinese banks at the time.[24]
Evergrande stated on 19 March 2024 that the
China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) had found that the company had overstated its revenue in 2019 by 214 billion yuan (nearly $30 billion), or about half, and in 2020 its revenue was overstated by nearly 80%, or 350 billion yuan ($48.6 billion).[25] The CSRC also suspected problems with the bonds Evergrande issued. The regulator fined Evergrande 4.2 billion yuan ($333 million) for falsifying its revenue, among other violations.[25]
Operations and business interests
Automotive
In 2018, Evergrande acquired a 45% stake in electric vehicle company
Faraday Future for $2 billion through its Evergrande Health subsidiary.[26]
In July 2019, the company partnered with
State Grid Corporation of China to develop electric vehicle charging stations.[27] Later in November 2019, Evergrande announced that it would invest ¥45 billion (approximately $6.4 billion USD)[28] over the following three years to develop new energy vehicles, build three production bases in
Nansha,
Guangzhou and
Shanghai, and launch
electric vehicles branded as "Evergrande New Energy Vehicle" in 2020,[29][30] creating the
Hengchielectric vehicle brand.[31]
In June 2020, Evergrande Group acquired the remaining 49% of
NEVS for $380 million, after having acquired 51% of the shares for $931 million in 2019.[32] Evergrande NEV has stated that it will start making
electric cars by 2022.[33]
On August 14, 2023, Evergrande Group received the first $500 million strategic investment from NWTN Group.[34][35]
Health
In March 2015, Evergrande acquired New Media Group Holdings and renamed it Evergrande Health.[36] Evergrande Health Group operates the "Evergrande Health Valley" in
Nanning. The Health Valley is a health and wellness park, and retirement community.[37] It also works with
Brigham and Women's Hospital in
Massachusetts to manage Boao Evergrande International Hospital in Hainan.[38]
Evergrande Health is both a division and a listed company. However, the listed company portion was renamed into China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group Limited in August 2020.[39][40]
The health division is still part of China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group Limited and in turn part of Evergrande Group as of 2021.[41]
Entertainment
HengTen Networks was formed in 2015 in partnership with
Tencent. In October 2020, HengTen Networks announced that it would acquire Ruyi Pictures for HK$7.2 billion.[42] In August 2021, the company sold a 7% stake in HengTen to
Tencent for US$418 million.[43] Later in 2021, Evergrande sold off its remaining stake in HengTen, ending their relationship with Tencent.[44]
Finance
In November 2015, Evergrande acquired a 50% stake in Sino-Singapore Great Eastern Life Insurance Company for $617 million and changed its name to Evergrande Life.[45] It also owns shares in
Shengjing Bank.[46] Evergrande has also sold
wealth management products to consumers.[47]
Food and agriculture
In 2014, Evergrande Group launched its "Hengda Bingquan" (later "Evergrande Spring")
mineral water brand and invested ¥5.54 billion in it, including hiring
Jackie Chan to promote the brand.[48] Evergrande's water brand received significant negative attention from Korean consumers, as the water source on the label was listed as "Jang bai shan" (
Changbai mountains) rather than the Korean name "
Mount Baekdusan." The use of the Chinese name of the mountain—which borders China and North Korea—is a point of stress between China and South Korea.[49]
In September 2016, after a loss of ¥4 billion, Evergrande sold its
agribusiness units, which included its mineral water brand, dairy business, and grain and oil business, for ¥2.7 billion.[50][51] Later that year, Evergrande announced it was investing ¥300 million to build more than 110
pig farms in southwestern Guizhou province.[52]
Evergrande Real Estate is the second-largest
real estate developer in Mainland China. It is known as "Wan Heng Bi" with the other two top three real estate companies:
Vanke (
pinyin: Wànkē) and
Country Garden (
pinyin: Bìguìyuán). The firm has developed projects in over 170 cities in Mainland China.
Evergrande Plaza, in Chengdu, was designed by
Aedas, and completed in 2014.[54]
Evergrande owns two major theme park brands "Hengda children of the world", "Hengda water world", and Hainan has a large tourist complex "Chinese island of Hainan to spend".[59][60][61] The under-construction
Ocean Flower Island in
Hainan is one of its major projects.[62]
Financial data per annual reports
Financial data in CNY[63][64][65](Financial year ends on 31 December)[66]
In 2016, the Hong Kong
Market Misconduct Tribunal suspended American
short seller and Citron Research founder
Andrew Left for five years, due to the publication of a highly critical report on the company, "finding him culpable of disclosing false or misleading information inducing transactions under the Securities and Futures Ordinance (SFO) in the publication of a research report on Evergrande Real Estate Group Limited (Evergrande) in June 2012."[79][80][81] The trading ban "has raised concerns over freedom of speech in Hong Kong's financial markets" according to the New York Times.[82]
At the same time the company was facing a
liquidity crisis, even going so far as to encourage employees to purchase financial products from the company.[83]
In 2020,
CCP General SecretaryXi Jinping's
government started to tighten the real estate market based on the principle that "property is to be lived in, not to be speculated on."[84]: 161 New restrictions lead to a downturn in the property market, with sales declining by 30% in 2021.[84]: 168
In summer of 2021, payments due on its debt, estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars, resulted in the
Evergrande liquidity crisis.[85][86][87][88][89] This was one of the reasons for a drop in many stock market indices on 20 September 2021.[90]
On October 15 2021, the accounting regulator in Hong Kong announced an investigation into
PwC's auditing of Evergrande. PwC had signed off the 2020 accounts of Evergrande without reference to its uncertainties as a growing concern. Evergrade itself reported concerns as to continuing operations in its half-year accounts for 2021.[91][92]
On 21 October 2021, Evergrande announced that a $2.6 billion asset sale that would have been used to pay an $83 million interest payment it missed in September, 2021 had failed to close.[93] On 10 November 2021, Evergrande defaulted on 3 more bonds after missing the grace period for interest payments.[94] A major news outlet reported they fulfilled the payments after the deadline.[95]
In November 2021, although the scale of debt was huge, from the perspective of financial data alone, Evergrande had not yet reached the point of "insolvency". According to the aforementioned financial report, Evergrande's land reserve was worth RMB 456.8 billion, and together with 146 old reform projects, the total value of the land reserve was nearly RMB 2 trillion. In addition, there are many completed commercial properties and holdings, such as the headquarters building in Hong Kong, worth around RMB 10 billion.[96][97]
On 17 December 2021, Evergrande was officially declared to be in default by S&P Global after missing a bond payment earlier in the month.[98] On 3 January 2022, Evergrande shares were suspended from trading, without a reason being provided by the company.[99] Trading resumed a day later and its stock price rose by 10%.[100] On 15 March 2022, Evergrande's share price sank to a new all-time low of HK$1.16 (US$0.15), down from a high of over HK$31 in October 2017.[101]
On 30 March 2022, Evergrande announced the decision to sell its Crystal City Project in
Hangzhou for 3.66 billion
yuan to Zhejiang Zhejian Real Estate Group and Zhejiang Construction Engineering Group, using the proceeds to repay construction debt of 920.7 million yuan to Zhejiang Construction Engineering. The deal is expected to post a gain of about 216 million yuan.[102]
In January 2023, PwC quit in disagreement over the audit of Evergrande´s 2021 accounts.[103]
In July 2023 it became known that Evergrade made a loss of 476 billion yuan in 2021 and 106 billion yuan in 2022.[104]
On 28 September 2023, trading in Evergrande shares was suspended after a report was released stating that its chairman, Hui, was under police investigation for suspicion of crimes.[106]
In February 2024, Evergrade liquidators prepared for a potential lawsuit against PwC.[107]
^"Contact". Evergrande Group.
Archived from the original on 28 June 2021. Retrieved 5 February 2021. 35 / f, excellent houhui financial center, no. 1126 Hyde [sic] road, nanshan district, shenzhen -
Chinese addressArchived 6 November 2020 at the
Wayback Machine: "深圳市南山区海德三道1126号" (based on the Chinese address it is Haide Third Road)
^INTERIM REPORT 2021(PDF). China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group. 30 September 2021.
Archived(PDF) from the original on 17 December 2021. Retrieved 17 December 2021.