Evergrande liquidators plan first payout to creditors next year; less than 1% recovered
Many of Evergrande’s assets have been difficult to sell
NEARLY three years after China Evergrande Group began winding up, liquidators have recovered less than 1 per cent of the US$46 billion sought by creditors, which they aim to begin distributing in the first half of 2027.
Edward Middleton and Tiffany Wong, from the consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal, said on Thursday that they’ve raised about HK$3.4 billion (US$433 million) as of Sep 30. For the first time, the court-appointed liquidators published a detailed breakdown of how much they recouped from various assets, including aircraft, artwork and club memberships.
Evergrande’s dramatic collapse has become an emblem of the prolonged Chinese property crisis that’s still rippling through the world’s second-biggest economy.
The company’s creditors have faced multiple twists and turns in their quest to recover their money, including the August sentencing of Evergrande’s founder Hui Ka Yan to life in prison.
The liquidators on Thursday gave their second progress report since they set out on the monumental task of sifting through Evergrande’s web of holdings across the globe. The company had 3,000 legal entities in multiple jurisdictions, as well as about 1,300 projects under development in more than 280 cities.
Middleton and Wong said they’re still adjudicating 200 debt claims and didn’t say how much creditors should expect to receive in their first payment.
In 2023, Deloitte estimated that the recovery rate for the company’s dollar notes would be 3.4 per cent on average if the firm was liquidated.
The liquidators said they’ve entered exclusive talks to sell a majority stake in Evergrande’s property management unit, one of three large potential sources of cash. Asian private equity firm PAG was in discussions to buy the stake, Bloomberg reported earlier, after negotiations with a Chinese state-owned suitor broke down.
But the liquidators also stressed that severe challenges remain because many of Evergrande’s assets have been difficult to sell.
For example, an Airbus A319 jet is still parked at an airport in Guangzhou and hasn’t been airworthy since 2023, they said. A buyer has signed an agreement that should generate about US$12 million after an initial deal fell through.
The liquidators also managed to raise HK$255 million by disposing of artwork including some by Picasso and Monet, though the pieces were sold at a loss.
The paintings were “hurriedly and improperly” moved to a storeroom in Evergrande’s headquarters, and didn’t appear to have been packaged properly, they said.
The liquidators said there’s only a “remote” chance they’ll be able to recover assets held by Evergrande’s subsidiaries in mainland China, where the company was once the biggest property developer by sales. They haven’t been granted direct access to Chinese information systems.
While a large amount of documentation has been found, much of it is fragmented and incomplete.
More than 650 of Evergrande’s entities have entered bankruptcy administration in mainland China. The company’s Guangzhou Kailong Real Estate unit, which holds a roughly 60 per cent stake in Evergrande’s primary onshore property development arm, has received claims from the liquidators for about HK$1.4 billion of debt.
Middleton and Wong have launched a series of lawsuits to aid their pursuit of Evergrande’s funds.
They are trying to claw back US$6.5 billion in dividends and remuneration from former executives including Hui, ex-chief executive Officer Xia Haijun and Hui’s ex-wife Ding Yumei.
In one of the largest corporate claims ever filed in Hong Kong, the liquidators are also targeting a total of 57 billion yuan (US$8.5 billion) from PricewaterhouseCoopers International Ltd. and its affiliates in mainland China and Hong Kong.
The liquidators have also brought Hong Kong’s regulator to court, seeking to void a HK$1 billion fund that PwC’s Hong Kong affiliate agreed to establish to compensate shareholders.
The Securities and Futures Commission struck the settlement deal in April following investigations into the firm’s auditing work for Evergrande. A judgment is expected to come before the end of October. REUTERS
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