恒大危机背后：中国房地产市场现裂痕

Angry buyers are waiting for the completion of 1.6 million apartments. Suppliers of cement, paint, and steel were owed more than $100 billion in payments. Employees panicked, worried that the loans they lent to their employers would not be repaid.
Evergrande Group was once China's most prolific developer, and its cranes dotted China's skyline. But now, it is crumbling under the weight of more than $300 billion in debt. The current risk is not just a matter of the fate of a company: Evergrande’s predicament raises concerns that China’s residential and commercial real estate markets may collapse. This market has driven one-third of the growth of the world's second largest economy.
On Monday, this panic triggered a global chain reaction, with global stock markets falling as the stocks of Chinese house builders and large multinational corporations fell. On Tuesday, after S&P Global Ratings made terrible predictions about Evergrande’s fate, its stocks and bonds fell again. The rating agency said: “We believe that Beijing will be forced to intervene only when there is a large-scale spread that leads to the closure of many large developers and brings systemic risks to the economy.” On Thursday, Evergrande Real Estate had a report. The interest of $83.5 million may not be paid, which will trigger more market turmoil.
If a company of the size of Evergrande fails orderly, it may have a knock-on effect in China and elsewhere, including scaring away investors who have bet tens of billions of dollars on the success of the company and the real estate industry.

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Michael Pettis, a professor of finance at Peking University, said: "If we are caught in this vicious circle, then without reliable intervention, we will see a large number of real estate developers in trouble."
In many ways, this problem was caused by Beijing itself, and the impact of Evergrande’s collapse will ultimately depend on the actions of the Chinese government.
For decades, China's real estate market seemed to have no limits. Developers like Evergrande Real Estate build cities from the ground, creating job opportunities, giving the middle class a place to pour their savings, and enriching the local governments that sell their land. In the process, they helped create economic growth that shocked the world.
Now that housing prices have become too high, Beijing is trying to slow its rate of rise. It also tried to convey the message: no company is too big to fail.
Evergrande’s problems stem from new restrictions on housing sales. Beijing is currently trying to curb real estate prices and address people’s concerns about rising housing prices. The government is also trying to give a lesson to developers who have borrowed heavily in recent years to build more real estate and finance investments for other businesses. (In the case of Evergrande, these benefits include electric cars and a football team.) The possible default of giants like Evergrande highlights the fragility of China's real estate industry. Some experts said that if the company goes bankrupt, it may cause panic in China's entire real estate industry (including all commercial, industrial and residential real estate), which may make Beijing more difficult to control.
Evergrande warned that it was facing tremendous pressure and hired restructuring experts to help determine its future. It has nearly 800 development projects still in progress in more than 200 cities. It has paid some unfinished construction suppliers, while contractors who have not yet received the payment have protested.
Although market observers once believed that Beijing would intervene at the first moment of trouble, rating agencies, banks, and investors have all taken into account Evergrande’s possible default. Many people now predict that Beijing will not intervene until other real estate developers begin to fail and pose a collective risk to the entire financial system.
"Officials still have some tools they can use to quell panic," said Chen Zhiwu, a professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong, who predicted that the authorities would spin off the company and sell some of it. "They are under tremendous pressure and must announce something as soon as possible."
Regarding the Evergrande issue, Beijing faces two bad choices. Regulators can step in and force state-owned banks to provide the company with the funds needed to pay all its suppliers, construction workers, home buyers and employees. But other developers will continue to do the same thing, borrowing arbitrarily, and fueling a growing real estate bubble, which Beijing has expressed unwilling to tolerate.
It can also let it go and let Evergrande go bankrupt, but it "is unwilling to do so because it will lead to economic collapse," Pettis said.
Beijing also has a way to control the social dissatisfaction that is brewing around Evergrande. Chinese censorship agencies have removed dozens of videos of the crowds of protesters in Evergrande offices in cities such as Hefei and Shenzhen last week. The police have threatened to lay off employees who are trying to get the attention of local officials.
But Beijing's ability to control the country's banks and large financial institutions is its greatest source of power.
Moreover, as investors begin to doubt their own vision of the entire real estate industry, the longer the authorities have to wait for Evergrande’s bailout, the more likely it is that other developers will suffer losses.
Like Evergrande, other Chinese real estate developers are also burdened with huge debts, and regulators are forcing them to repay their debts in accordance with the “three red lines” rules designed to limit the banking system’s exposure to real estate.
More broadly, the real estate market is beginning to slow down, and industry practices that help promote sales and allow developers to maintain operations—such as pre-sales of properties before completion—are being questioned. Regulators in at least two provinces announced new regulations this week to combat illegal behavior, including delayed delivery of real estate, misleading advertising or price manipulation.
In recent days, as the Chinese stock market has closed, the shares of other major Chinese developers listed in Hong Kong have become the target of investors’ concerns. The much smaller real estate developer Sinic Holdings (Sinic Holdings) shares fell 87% on Monday before trading was suspended.
"The question is: how much do they want to teach people a lesson?" said Travis Lundy, an independent investment analyst in Hong Kong. "How willing are they to make others suffer?"

恒大危机背后：中国房地产市场现裂痕

愤怒的购房者正在等待160万套公寓的完工。水泥、油漆和钢筋的供应商被拖欠超过1000亿美元的款项。员工惊慌失措，担心他们借给雇主的贷款无法得到偿还。
恒大集团曾是中国最高产的开发商，它的起重机点缀着中国的天际线。但现在，它正在3000多亿美元债务的重压下摇摇欲坠。目前的风险不仅仅是一家公司的命运问题：恒大的困境令人们担心中国住宅和商业地产市场可能崩溃。该市场推动了全球第二大经济体三分之一的增长。
周一，这种恐慌引发了全球连锁反应，随着中国房屋建筑商和大型跨国公司的股票下跌，全球股市下跌。周二，在标普全球评级(S&P Global Ratings)对恒大的命运做出可怕预测后，其股票和债券再次下跌。该评级机构表示：“我们认为，只有在出现大范围蔓延，导致多家大型开发商倒闭，并给经济带来系统性风险时，北京才会被迫介入。”周四，恒大地产有一笔8350万美元的利息可能无法支付，这将引发更多市场动荡。
像恒大这样规模的公司如果无序倒闭，可能会在中国和其他地方产生连锁反应，包括吓跑那些曾在该公司和房地产行业的成功上投注了数百亿美元的投资者。

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北京大学金融学教授迈克尔·佩蒂斯(Michael Pettis)表示：“如果我们陷入这种恶性循环，那么如果没有可靠的干预，我们将看到大量房地产开发商陷入困境。”
从很多方面来说，这个问题都是北京自己造成的，恒大倒闭的影响最终将取决于中国政府的做法。
几十年来，中国的房地产市场似乎没有限制。像恒大地产这样的开发商从平地建起城市，创造了就业机会，让中产阶级有了倾注积蓄的地方，并让卖给他们土地的地方政府富裕起来。在此过程中，它们帮助创造了震惊世界的经济增长。
现在，房价已经变得过高，北京正试图减缓其上涨的速度。它还试图传递这样一个信息：没有哪家公司是大到不能倒的。
恒大地产的问题源于对房屋销售的新限制，目前北京正试图抑制房地产价格，并解决人们对房价不断上升的担忧。政府还试图给近年来大举借债建设更多房产，并为其他业务融资投资的开发商一个教训。（就恒大而言，这些利益包括电动汽车和一支足球队。）像恒大这样的巨头可能违约，凸显出中国房地产行业的脆弱性。一些专家表示，如果该公司倒闭，可能会在中国整个房地产行业（包括所有商业、工业和住宅房地产）引发恐慌，这可能会让北京更难控制。
恒大警告，它面临着巨大的压力，并聘请了重组专家来帮助确定其未来。它在200多个城市有近800个开发项目仍在进行中。它已经向一些未完工的建筑供应商支付了款项，而尚未收到款项的承包商则提出了抗议。
尽管市场观察人士曾认为，北京会在出现困境的第一时间介入，但评级机构、银行和投资者都已将恒大可能违约的因素考虑在内。许多人现在预测，在其他房地产开发商开始倒闭并对整个金融体系构成集体风险之前，北京不会出手干预。
“官员们仍有一些工具可以用来平息恐慌，”香港大学金融学教授陈志武说，他预测当局将分拆该公司，并将其部分出售。“他们承受着巨大的压力，必须尽快宣布一些事情。”
在恒大问题上，北京面临着两个糟糕的选择。监管机构可以介入，迫使国有银行向该公司提供所需资金，以向其所有供应商、建筑工人、购房者和员工支付款项。但其他开发商将会继续做同样的事情，大肆举债，助长越来越大的房地产泡沫，这是北京曾表示不愿容忍的。
它也可以放手不管，让恒大彻底破产，但它“不愿意这么做，因为那会导致经济崩溃”，佩蒂斯说。
北京也有办法控制围绕恒大酝酿的社会不满情绪。中国的审查机构已经撤下了数十个关于上周在合肥和深圳等城市的恒大办公室挤满抗议者的视频。警方已经威胁要让那些试图引起地方官员注意的员工下岗。
但北京能够掌控这个国家的银行和大型金融机构，才是其最大的权力来源。
而且，随着投资者开始怀疑自己对整个房地产行业的设想，当局对恒大纾困的等待时间越长，其他开发商遭受损失的可能性就越大。
与恒大一样，其他中国房地产开发商也背负着巨额债务，监管机构正迫使它们按照旨在限制银行系统对房地产敞口的“三条红线”规则偿还债务。
更广泛地说，房地产市场正开始放缓，而那些有助于促进销售、让开发商维持运营的行业做法——比如在完工前预售房产——正受到质疑。至少两个省份的监管机构本周宣布了新规，以打击非法行为，包括延迟交付房产、误导性广告或操纵价格的行为。
最近几天，随着中国股市休市，在香港上市的中国其他主要开发商的股票成为投资者担忧的目标。规模小得多的房地产开发商新力控股(Sinic Holdings)周一股价下跌87%，随后停牌。
“问题是：他们有多想给人带来教训？”香港独立投资分析师特拉维斯·伦迪(Travis Lundy)说。“他们有多大意愿让其他人因此而受苦？”