(Financial Times) Property giant China Evergrande Group has been rated “restricted default” by global credit watcher Fitch, as the firm failed to make interest payments this week.
Fitch is so far the first watcher to rate Evergrande’s overseas bonds in default, following months in a debt crisis with about $19 billion in outstanding loans from international bond markets.
The announcement comes after Evergrande missed a deadline on Monday to repay bond coupons equivalent to $82.5 million. It has yet to make a payment as of Wednesday in New York, according to sources privy to the matter.
Both the company and the Chinese government have yet to confirm that Evergrande has defaulted on its loans, but the company earlier noted that there was no guarantee it would be able to meet the debt repayments.
People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang separately flagged that the failure of Evergrande to meet its loan repayments would be a market event, and investor rights would be respected.
The Chinese central bank earlier this week unloaded $188 billion of liquidity in efforts to counter concerns involving the Evergrande crisis.
3333 closed Thursday up 4.05%.
