HONG KONG: A Hong Kong court dismisses a petition to liquidate Chinese property giant Country Garden, weeks after the firm says it had restructured its massive offshore debt obligations.
Country Garden was once China’s largest real estate developer, propping up a crucial sector for national economic growth before it and industry peers such as Evergrande, Vanke and Kaisa were hit with protracted debt struggles.
The Guangdong province-headquartered firm reported total liabilities of 885.4 billion yuan (US$128bil) as of the end of last June.
The company’s shares in Hong Kong continued to trade near all-time lows, having showed little signs of recovery after a nine-month trading suspension was lifted in January 2025.
High Court judge Linda Chan took less than a minute yesterday to dismiss the petition, which was initiated in 2024 by Country Garden creditor Ever Credit Limited.
No representative from the developer or its creditors spoke in court.
Country Garden said in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing last year that its restructuring scheme was approved by the court on Dec 4.
The company announced in a later filing that “the Restructuring Effective Date has occurred on Dec 30, 2025”.
Law firm Linklaters said at the time that it had advised the Chinese property developer in “the successful restructuring of approximately US$17.7bil of its offshore debt”.
“This is one of the largest and most complex offshore restructurings by a Chinese issuer, in terms of the size of the total debt as well as the number and diversity of creditors,” Linklaters said in a statement.
Country Garden announced last week that its chairman Yang Huiyan, co-chairman Mo Bin and chief financial officer Wu Bijun received a “decision on disciplinary action” from the Shanghai Stock Exchange over a failure to disclose overdue debts.
Country Garden was once China’s largest developer by sales and one of the world’s most valuable property companies. A snapshot of its peak valuation came from its 2020 market capitalisation, when it was worth about 196.3bil yuan.
The Hong Kong court’s decision gives the company breathing room, but not a clean bill of health. — AFP
