By Clare Jim and Rishav Chatterjee
(Reuters) -Greentown China said on Tuesday it will issue additional dollar bonds worth $150 million to help refinance its existing borrowings, after offering the first dollar bond sale in the sector in two years last week.
The state-backed property developer last week said it sold $350 million worth of 8.45% senior notes due in 2028, the first dollar bond sale by a Chinese property developer since early 2023, in a sign that some investor appetite for speculative-grade China property debt could be returning.
The additional bonds will have the same tenor and coupon to form a single series, Hangzhou-based Greentown said in a filing. The proceeds from the new issues will be used partly to fund the repurchase of two of its dollar bonds.
The offering price of the additional notes will be 100.5% and the issue yield will be 8.258%, it added.
The developer last week offered to buy back part of the $741 million of outstanding bonds due in April 2025 and July 2025. The firm will determine the maximum acceptance amount of the repurchase after the offer expires on February 20.
The Hong Kong-listed company’s refinancing comes amid heightened investor caution following a spate of defaults in China’s property sector as residential and commercial markets continued to struggle.
S&P Global Ratings said in a note on Friday that Greentown’s proposed notes could boost the developer’s liquidity and provide room for new investments.
S&P added that the issue showed Greentown’s access to funding channels might be expanding beyond onshore bonds and onshore banks, noting that it had issued 1 billion yuan ($137.37 million) of onshore bonds in January.
Deutsche Bank and HSBC are the joint bookrunners of the proposed additional notes offering.
($1 = 7.2797 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Rishav Chatterjee in Bengaluru and Clare Jim in Hong Kong; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala, Kate Mayberry and Susan Fenton)
