Words: Tom Ward
You’ve likely heard financial whisperings, then rumours, and finally, massive tremors coming from the East over the past few months. And with good reason. China Evergrande now has the honour of being the most indebted property developer in the world with liabilities of over $300bn as of mid December.
It doesn’t look like its getting any better, either; the company had been due to repay interest on roughly $1.2bn of loans on Monday 13th, but by Wednesday 15th December the cash was yet to materialise.
Until recently, Evergande was a success story. The Shenzhen-based developer employs about 200,000 people and generates 3.8 million jobs a year. It currently claims to be working on over 1,300 projects across 280 Chinese cities from theme parks to electric vehicles and a $185 million football team, Guangzhou Evergrande. It was even due to build the world’s largest football stadium, a 100,000-seater appropriately shaped like a lotus flower.
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