SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Some of China Evergrande Group’s offshore bondholders are not expecting the firm to make an interest payment by a Thursday deadline, a person familiar with the matter said, as worries about the fate of the property developer mount.
Evergrande, which is scrambling to raise funds to pay its many lenders and suppliers, is due to pay $83.5 million in interest on a $2 billion offshore bond on Thursday and also has a $47.5 million dollar-bond interest payment next week.
Both bonds would default if the company, which has outstanding debt of $305 billion, fails to settle the interest within 30 days of the scheduled payment dates.
The company has yet to make an announcement about its plans for the offshore bond payment obligation.
A spokesperson for Evergrande did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
While some of the bondholders are not expecting the payment on Thursday, they are expecting Evergrande to provide some clarity over the next month or so, said the person, who declined to be named due to confidentiality constraints.
By late evening on Thursday in Asia, these bondholders had yet to receive any information from Evergrande about the payments due on Thursday, the first source and another person familiar with the matter said.
Reuters was unable to determine whether Evergrande has told bondholders what it plans to do regarding the coupon payment due on Thursday. The first source said there had been very little communication from the company.
(Reporting by Anshuman Daga in Singapore; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and David Clarke)
