Hui Ka Yan has finally revealed his plan to save China Evergrande. He wants the embattled property developer to shift its focus from real estate to manufacturing electric vehicles, but skepticism abounds.
Despite having never sold a vehicle, Hui’s aim is to turn away from Evergrande’s main business and become an EV maker within the next decade, the state-run Securities Times reported late Friday evening, citing an internal meeting held on October 22.
The proposal sent shares of his Hong Kong-listed EV unit, China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group, soaring as much as 17% on Monday before closing the day with a gain of 11.4%. But the company still trades at just a fraction of its peak market value of $86.7 billion that it reached in mid-April after tumbling 94% since then.
Analysts, however, have expressed their skepticism. It remains unclear whether Evergrande, now close to collapsing under $305 billion in total liabilities, has the expertise or capital to compete in China’s increasingly crowded EV field.
“Evergrande used to have a strategy of buy, buy and buy,” says John Zeng, a Shanghai-based director of China forecasting at consultancy LMC Automotive, referring to the property developer’s previous EV-related acquisitions. “Its approach was very simple and unpolished, and no one really knows how much technology it has mastered. ”
Hui Ka Yan attends a press conference at the 12th CPPCC National Committee on March 9, 2017 in … [+] Beijing, China.
VCG/VCG via Getty Images
Hui currently has a net worth of $11.6 billion that is largely based on dividend payouts received over the years. He was a former steel factory worker when he first established Evergrande in 1997. Although he had no prior experience in producing EVs when he first announced his ambition to do so in 2019, he has since funneled more than $1 billion into a series of acquisitions that saw him gain control of National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB (NEVS) and buy a majority stake in battery maker Shanghai CENAT New Energy. The company said its first EV model Hengchi would be delivered from its Tianjin factory early next year, according to an October 11 post published on Evergrande’s website.
But its EV unit warned less than a month ago that it was encountering a “serious shortage of funds,” according to a September 24 stock exchange filing. The company said it had “suspended paying some of its operating expenses and some suppliers have suspended supplying for projects.”
Evergrande itself warned last week that there was “no guarantee” it will be able to meet its financial obligations. The company did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
Even if Hui eventually manages to begin producing EVs, how he would sell them is another question with no clear answer, says Yale Zhang, managing director of Shanghai-based consultancy Automotive Foresight.
“Building a sales channel from scratch is very capital intensive, and Evergrande doesn’t appear to have channels of its own,” says Zhang. “Plus, its current model is a concept car that is still quite some distance away from mass manufacturing and selling.”
Justin Tang, head of Asian Research at New York-based investment and advisory group United First Partners, says the billionaire may simply be trying to boost investor confidence. Hui also pledged during the same meeting to deliver Evergrande’s unfinished properties to homebuyers, saying the company “in principle” won’t buy land over the next ten years, and would reduce the scale of its property development business “by a large margin,” according to the Securities Times report.
The company said separately via its WeChat public account that its 40 real estate projects in places including Guangzhou and Foshan are progressing “smoothly and orderly.” Last week, Evergrande narrowly avoided default by paying a $83.5 million bond coupon just before a 30-day grace period was about to expire.
But Evergrande faces more interest payments down the road, and $3.5 billion of its offshore bonds are expected to mature in March. The cash-strapped company has been struggling to raise funds through asset sales and other means, and market doubts over whether it can meet its debt obligations continue to persist.
“Where is the money coming from?” asks Tang, adding that Evergrande “doesn’t have time as a friend,” and its proposal of saving itself by making cars has “lots of questions but no real answers.”
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
