By Scott Murdoch, Clare Jim and Xie Yu

(Reuters) -Chinese language developer Nation Backyard stated on Wednesday a liquidation petition has been filed in opposition to it for non-payment of a $205 million mortgage, clouding its debt revamp prospects and undermining Beijing’s effort to revive confidence within the property sector.

Nation Backyard stated in a regulatory submitting to the Hong Kong Inventory Change it could “resolutely” oppose the petition, which was filed by a creditor, Ever Credit score Restricted, a unit of Hong Kong-listed Kingboard Holdings.

A court docket listening to had been set for Might 17. Kingboard didn’t instantly reply to Reuters request for remark.

Nation Backyard’s shares fell greater than 12% on Wednesday after the submitting, lagging a 0.2% achieve for the benchmark .

The petition is about to revive homebuyer and creditor issues concerning the Chinese language property sector’s debt disaster at a time when Beijing is making an attempt to spice up confidence within the business that accounts for 1 / 4 of China’s GDP.

A liquidation of Nation Backyard would exacerbate the true property disaster, put extra pressure on its onshore lenders, and will delay the prospect of a restoration of not solely the property market, however the total Chinese language financial system.

The petition comes a month after China Evergrande (HK:) Group, the world’s most indebted property developer with greater than $300 billion in liabilities, was ordered to be liquidated by a Hong Kong court docket.

Evergrande now faces an advanced restructuring course of that some traders assume might final greater than a decade.

China’s property sector, a pillar of the world’s second-largest financial system, has lurched from one disaster to a different since 2021 after a regulatory crackdown on debt-fuelled building triggered a liquidity squeeze.

A string of builders have defaulted on their compensation obligations since then, and plenty of of them have both launched or are within the means of beginning debt restructuring processes to keep away from dealing with chapter or liquidation proceedings.

China’s new residence costs slowed their month-on-month declines in January with the most important cities seeing some stabilisation, however the nationwide downward pattern continued regardless of Beijing’s efforts to revive demand.

“RADICAL ACTIONS”

Nation Backyard’s debt restructuring course of, which gathered momentum in latest weeks with its $11 billion offshore debt deemed to be in default, may very well be clouded by the liquidation petition if it makes different collectors assume twice about settling.

Nation Backyard has appointed KPMG and regulation agency Sidley Austin as advisers to look at its capital construction and liquidity place and formulate what it known as a “holistic” resolution.

The corporate in final October missed a $15 million bond coupon compensation, and so-called advert hoc bondholder teams have been fashioned consisting of worldwide collectors. It’s not instantly identified if Nation Backyard has began talks with the collectors.

The developer had complete liabilities of 1.36 trillion yuan ($188.9 billion) as on the finish of June, 2023, near its 1.43 trillion yuan of complete property.

“Nation Backyard has taken means too lengthy, messing round with switching advisors and losing time, so it is no shock individuals lose their persistence and would reasonably liquidate them,” a Nation Backyard greenback bond investor advised Reuters.

The investor couldn’t be named as they weren’t permitted to talk to media.

Nation Backyard stated in its submitting that it could proceed to “proactively talk and work with its offshore collectors on its restructuring plan” because it aimed to announce phrases to the market as quickly as practicable.

“The novel actions of a single creditor won’t have a major influence on our firm’s assured supply of buildings, regular operations and the general restructuring of abroad money owed,” it stated in assertion to Reuters.

Funding holding agency Kingboard in October grew to become one of many first identified firms to take authorized motion in opposition to Nation Backyard when its unit Ever Credit score, which is owed HK$1.6 billion ($204.5 million), issued a statutory demand in search of compensation.

Earlier this yr, Nation Backyard’s prime administration warned that the property market would stay weak in 2024 and the corporate might face extra, “extreme” challenges.

Nation Backyard has additionally stepped up disposing of its property offshore lately to lift fund, promoting its stake in its final Australian undertaking final month and placing a residential growth in East London up on the market.

($1 = 7.8244 Hong Kong {dollars})

($1 = 7.1989 renminbi)