Your Evening Briefing: Big China Developer Scrambles for Extensions

Distressed Chinese developer Country Garden Holdings is approaching another deadline for voting by bondholders on its request to extend repayment on a security after winning support on 10.3 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) of other local notes. The voting is set to conclude Thursday night 10 p.m. Beijing-time. The bond is the last in a group of eight notes that it asked to stretch repayment on by three years, with extension of the other seven having already been approved. Country Garden has become a symbol of a broader property debt crisis that’s led to record defaults and prompted Xi Jinping’s government to scramble in an effort to avoid more contagion. More widely, the builder must sort through 1.36 trillion yuan ($187 billion) of total liabilities before its next major test when a $1 billion note matures in January. Investors everywhere will be keeping close tabs on the giant developer’s effort to keep afloat. Any stumble could impact China’s housing market even more than a landmark default in 2021 by Evergrande Group—seeing as Country Garden has four times as many projects. Such a collapse could have dire consequences for the Chinese economy while inflicting global collateral damage.

Arm Holdings is said to have priced its initial public offering at the top end of its range to raise $4.87 billion in the largest listing of the year. The chip designer, which is owned by SoftBank Group, is selling the American depositary shares for $51 each. Arm had marketed 95.5 million shares for $47 to $51 each.