The construction company China Evergrande, which has got into financial difficulties, wants to postpone the payment date for payments due soon. The proposed change in the repayment date from January 8th to July 8th was due to the financial situation, the group announced on Wednesday without further details.
Evergrande is inviting its creditors to an online meeting from January 7th to 10th, followed by a vote.
The Hengda Real Estate Group, the flagship of the Evergrande real estate division, said bond trading will be suspended from January 6 before the negotiations.
The securities concerned are the Hengda 6.98 percent bond interest of 4.5 billion yuan (156.92 million dollars) with a term of January 2023 due this weekend.
Evergrande shares listed in Hong Kong fell over 1 percent on Wednesday morning, while the market was down 0.5 percent.
The second largest real estate developer in China is struggling with a mountain of debt of more than 300 billion dollars and has already warned of possible defaults.
Debt of 260 billion euros
At the stock exchange in Hong Kong, trading in shares of the heavily indebted group was again suspended at the beginning of the week. The exchange announced this without giving any further reasons. Evergrande did not initially provide any reasons for this either, but announced that information would be published. Trading in Evergrande shares was temporarily suspended in October.
Evergrande is sitting on a gigantic mountain of debt worth around 260 billion euros.
The real estate developer is currently unable to complete all of the houses and apartments that have been promised, nor to settle its debts.
The international rating agencies have already downgraded the group to insolvent.
Most recently, in addition to Fitch, Standard & Poor's (S&P) also downgraded Evergrande's creditworthiness further - to credit default in some areas and thus one step ahead of complete default.
The company's share price fell by almost 90 percent last year.
At the same time, other Chinese real estate companies got into trouble, while the long booming market suffered a setback.