By Clare Jim
HONG KONG (Reuters) -China Evergrande Group, the world’s most indebted property developer, posted a net loss of 105.9 billion yuan ($14.8 billion) in 2022, while its total liabilities increased to 2.4 trillion yuan ($334.6 billion), it said in its long overdue results.
The developer defaulted in late 2021 and has been struggling to complete projects and repay its many suppliers and creditors. After announcing an offshore debt restructuring plan in March, it is now garnering support to complete the process.
With one of the largest debt piles in the country, Evergrande’s debt problem has rippled through China’s property sector, a pillar of the world’s second-largest economy, leading to a string of defaults and uncompleted homes across the nation.
The big losses were in line with analyst expectations as Evergrande its contracted sales fell to 443 billion yuan and 31.7 billion yuan respectively, versus 723 billion yuan in 2020.
Charles Macgregor, head of Asia of Lucror Analytics, said he was not optimistic about Evergrande’s results. “Results are meaningless if the business model is broken,” he added, speaking ahead of the announcements.
Evergrande’s shares listed in Hong Kong will remain suspended.
They have been halted from trading since March 21 last year, pending the financial results and an investigation into a 13.4 billion yuan of seized deposits of a unit, among others. The company risks being delisted if its shares remain suspended for 18 months.
($1 = 7.1729 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Clare Jim; Editing by Himani Sarkar and David Evans)
