China’s Wanda Commercial meets US$400m bond repayment deadline

CHINA’S Dalian Wanda Commercial Management, a unit of China’s largest commercial real estate developer Dalian Wanda Group, has made a US$400 million bond repayment, financial information provider Redd reported on Saturday (Jul 22).

Ratings agencies Moody’s and S&P both raised concerns in recent days about the property company’s ability to meet the debt repayment deadline. Wanda did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Wanda Commercial, which has been under spotlight over its debt woes, has around 6.7 billion yuan (S$1.2 billion) of onshore bonds maturing and puttable through June 2024, according to Moody’s, and US$1 billion of offshore bonds coming due in the period.

Its next deadline will be a 3.5 billion yuan onshore bond due on Jul 29. The next debt maturity offshore is in January 2024 for a US$600 million bond.

Its debt pile is small compared with other Chinese residential property developers, many of which have defaulted since mid-2021 amid a debt crisis.