Indebted Chinese real estate Evergrande promises to deliver houses

The troubled Chinese company Evergrande will deliver nearly four times the number of homes to buyers in December, said its president said in the previous three months, despite the real estate giant dragging on massive debts.

With nearly $ 300 billion in debt, Evergrande has struggled to pay bondholders and investors after being hit by Beijing’s restrictive measures to control the expansion of the real estate sector.

But the group, which officially defaulted on a bond this month, insists it will be able to deliver tens of thousands of units in December and pay off some of its debts.

“Since the company’s troubles started, we delivered fewer than 10,000 units in September, October and November,” President Hui Ka Yan said at a meeting Sunday night, according to Evergrande’s account on China’s WeChat network.

“There are only five days left in this month, we must accelerate to ensure the delivery of 39,000 units this month,” he added.

The new houses are spread over 115 projects, he said.

In recent months, the company has said it will complete unfinished projects and hand them over to buyers, in a desperate attempt to safeguard its debts, despite defaulting more than $ 1.2 billion this month.

Previous attempts to pay suppliers and contractors sparked protests from buyers and investors at the group’s Shenzhen headquarters in September.

Since then, the firm has tried to sell assets and reduce its shares in other firms, and Hui has paid off some of the debts with his large personal fortune.

The Guangdong provincial government, where the firm is based, oversees Evergrande’s debt restructuring process, although Beijing has not reversed the restrictions that caused the housing crisis.

The Chinese central bank, which attributed the firm’s problems to “mismanagement and blind expansion,” promised on Saturday to protect the rights of home buyers and promote the healthy development of the housing market.