Chinese developer Kaisa says sales blockage lifted at eight developments

[HONG Chinese property developer Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd on Thursday said Shenzhen city authorities have removed sales blockages, imposed for undisclosed reasons, on nearly all apartments in eight residential developments.

Shenzhen city blocked sales at around 10 developments in December, leaving Kaisa struggling to repay over $10 billion in debt. Sunac China Holdings Ltd set removal of the sales blocks, as well as restructuring of the debt, as conditions to buy its smaller peer.

On Wednesday, the website of Shenzhen's Urban Planning Land and Resources Commission showed the status of some apartments as"frozen by the court" rather than "blocked by authorities". Others, many of which were in the process of being sold when the block was imposed, were marked as "sold and registered".

On Thursday, Kaisa said the website showed only 3 per cent of apartments at eight developments as blocked and 5 per cent as frozen. The developer said in a statement it had not received any formal notification of the change, but that it was working with authorities to free the remaining blocked apartments.

Both the Commission and Sunac declined to provide immediate comment.

Kaisa also said that as of Tuesday, onshore creditors had filed 70 court applications to freeze its assets, and that the court had made 28 rulings freezing assets valued at 14.8 billion yuan (A$3.23 billion) spanning several developments.

Onshore creditors could recoup money owed by asking the court to liquidate frozen assets. Offshore creditors, who are owed US$2.5 billion, would only be able to recoup money from Kaisa, which would need to sell the assets to raise funds.

Kaisa bonds were unchanged on Thursday after rising as much as 4.00 cents on the dollar on Wednesday.

REUTERS