HONG KONG: China Evergrande Group yesterday missed its third round of bond payments in three weeks, intensifying market fears over contagion involving other property developers as a wall of debt payment obligations come due in the near term.

Some bondholders said they did not receive coupon payments totalling US$148mil on Evergrande’s April 2022, April 2023 and April 2024 notes due by yesterday, following two other payments it missed in September.

That puts investors at risk of large losses at the end of 30-day grace periods as the developer wrestles with more than US$300bil in liabilities.

Evergrande did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A total of US$92.3bil bonds issued by Chinese developers will be due in the next year, according to Refinitiv data.

“We see more defaults ahead if the liquidity problem does not improve markedly,” said brokerage CGS-CIMB in a note, adding developers with weaker credit rating are having difficulty in refinancing at the moment.

 - Reuters