China Evergrande’s winding-up hearing adjourned to Oct. 30 – Hong Kong court

HONG KONG (Reuters) – The hearing for a winding-up petition against China Evergrande Group has been adjourned to Oct. 30 from July 31, a Hong Kong court diary showed.

The adjournment was initiated by the petitioner in order to wait for the result from Evergrande’s meeting with creditors on Aug. 23 to vote on its offshore debt restructuring plan, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Evergrande and Top Shine Global Ltd, the petitioner, declined to comment.

A Hong Kong court on Monday said it would decide in sanction hearings on Sept. 5 and 6 on the restructuring plan after the voting, which could allow Evergrande’s offshore creditors to recoup up to about one-quarter of what they are owed.

Evergrande, at the centre of China’s property sector crisis, has $330 billion in liabilities, making it the world’s most indebted developer. A default in late 2021 triggered a string of defaults at other builders and left thousands of homes unfinished across China.

Evergrande, which needs approval from holders representing more than 75% in creditor value in each debt class to pass the plan, said in April that 77% of holders of class-A debt and 30% of holders of class-C debt had indicated support.

The March restructuring plan was proposed to creditors with a basket of options to swap debt for new bonds and equity-linked instruments.

Evergrande cited an updated analysis commissioned from consultancy Deloitte on Monday that the recovery rate from its proposed debt restructuring plan would be around 22.5%, compared with 3.4% if the developer is liquidated.

Top Shine, an investor in Evergrande unit Fangchebao, in June 2022 filed a winding-up petition in Hong Kong because it said Evergrande had not honoured an agreement to repurchase shares the investor bought in the unit.