A Powerlong commercial project in Xiamen, Fujian province
In today’s roundup of regional news headlines, Chinese developer Powerlong looks to stagger payments over one year for an onshore bond maturing next week, Shanghai’s rental residential market takes its lumps in the aftermath of a harsh COVID lockdown, and Singapore’s Guocoland markets double-storey “Sky-Bungalows” at its Midtown Modern project.
China’s Powerlong Real Estate Seeks Delay in Bond Payment
Chinese developer Powerlong Real Estate Holdings is seeking to delay payment of RMB 600 million ($89 million) in onshore bonds due on 15 July and to repay the principal in batches over one year, said two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
In a proposal to its bondholders, Hong Kong-listed Powerlong aims to pay 5 percent of the principal on the due date of the bonds, 15 percent of the principal after six months and the remaining 80 percent after 12 months, the sources told Reuters. Read more>>
Shanghai Rental Residential Market Suffers After Lockdown
Shanghai’s home rental market is taking some knocks as owners struggle to find new tenants to replace the horde of professionals who skipped town before the lockdown and factory workers who lost their jobs when businesses cratered. The recovery may be uneven after a round of price cuts.
Rents in some of the 16 districts in China’s main financial hub fell by more than a tenth, even after businesses and daily life in the city of 25 million people returned to normal when the local government declared a victory over the Omicron outbreak and ended the shutdown on 1 June. Read more>>
Shimao Creditors Get Organised After $1B Bond Default
Shimao Group Holdings’ global creditors are gearing up to organise themselves after the luxury builder defaulted on a $1 billion bond due Sunday.
An executive at investment bank Houlihan Lokey asked Shimao bondholders to join its creditor group, according to people at firms that hold the notes who dialled into a conference call late Tuesday arranged by the adviser and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. Shimao is now embracing a holistic restructuring that is expected to take some time, said the people who aren’t authorised to speak publicly about their holdings, citing an executive on the call. Read more>>
Fantasia Gets Extension on Onshore Bond
Chinese developer Fantasia Holdings is getting some breathing room to tackle its $12 billion in liabilities after creditors agreed to extend the maturity of a domestic bond and accept staggered bond interest payments.
Bondholders agreed to delay the repayment of a RMB 724 million ($107.7 million) 8.2 percent bond by five months to December, according to a Hong Kong stock exchange filing late Tuesday. They will also accept 20 percent of the coupon on 8 July and 80 percent on 5 December. Read more>>
Guocoland’s Midtown Modern Marketing $11M ‘Sky-Bungalows’
Guocoland has launched a collection of six large, double-storey homes at its Midtown Modern condominium in Bugis priced at S$15.5 million ($11 million) to S$17 million each or S$4,287 to S$4,701 per square foot.
Branded as the Midtown Modern Sky-Bungalow Collection, the homes have been created by combining four-bedroom premium units that are stacked together — an option the developer had offered at launch in March of last year. Read more>>
Singapore Govt Says Stamp Duty Not Intended as a Wealth Tax
Singapore’s senior minister of state for finance, Chee Hong Tat, said Tuesday that the new stamp duties introduced in May are not intended to be a form of wealth tax; instead, they are part of the government’s raft of measures aimed at cooling down the residential property market.
He was referring to the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty for Trust, the Additional Conveyance Duties for Trust and the stamp duties imposed on the renunciation of a trust property in his reply to Member of Parliament Don Wee, who had asked how much the government expected to raise from the new stamp duties. Read more>>
China’s Housing Market Pain Set to Continue After Sales Bottom
China’s real estate slump is probably past its worst — but the market remains a long way from a full recovery.
Industry executives and economists foresee sales remaining depressed due a weak job market, a prolonged cash crunch and low confidence on housing prices. It could hit growth in the world’s second-largest economy, where real estate and related industries account for about 20 percent of GDP. Read more>>
Zhongshan Tightens Grip on Home Prices
Authorities in Guangdong province’s Zhongshan have limited the reduction in registration prices for new homes to 5 percent once every three months.
Selling prices also have to be within a 15 percent range of the prices registered with the government, according to an official notice this week. Read more>>
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