Evergrande Shares Reopen Higher; Contracted Sales Fall

On Tuesday afternoon, in Hong Kong, Evergrande shares reopened higher, with shares trying to maintain gains of about 3.1%.

Indebted property developer Evergrande’s contracted sales fell in 2021 as it struggled to compensate its creditors.

A statement on Tuesday showed the company’s contracted sales totaled 443.03 billion yuan, equal to $69.23 billion in 2021. Moreover, it appears down 38.8% from the 723.26 billion yuan reported for 2020.

Trading finished as of 9 a.m. Monday, with shares at 1.58 Hong Kong dollars each. According to FactSet, that’s just exceeding the all-time intraday low of 1.43 Hong Kong dollars per share.

Its shares have dropped more than 87% over the last 260 trading days. Fitch Ratings said that the company missed payments to creditors in December.

Evergrande is the largest Chinese real estate developer by U.S. dollar-denominated debt. In fact, it stood at over $18 billion in 2021. It had a total of $300 billion in liabilities last year.

On Tuesday, the company said it would continue actively maintaining communication with creditors. Furthermore, it hopes to resolve risks and protect all groups’ legitimate rights and interests.

According to Tuesday’s Hong Kong stock exchange filing, Evergrande added that a demolition order only applied to 39 buildings.

Evergrande’s public statements tried to assure its investors that it would complete and deliver apartments to clients. In the meantime, demand is decreasing for the company’s future projects.

What to watch this week:

• FOMC meeting scheduled for Wednesday
• Fed’s discusses the U.S. economy on Thursday
• Fed’s Daly discusses the monetary policy on Friday
• ECB’s Schnabel speaks on a panel Saturday

Currencies

• The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.2%
• The euro appeared changed at $1.1293
• The Japanese yen declined 0.5% to 115.79 per dollar
• The offshore yuan appeared at 6.3777 per dollar
• The British pound was at $1.3487