China Evergrande’s first-half sales jump 72pc to 244b yuan

China Evergrande Group, the country’s largest homebuilder, said its first-half contracted sales rose 72 per cent from a year earlier to 244 billion yuan (US$36 billion), representing 54 per cent of the company’s annual sales target of 450 billion yuan.

Evergrande achieved sales of 61.1 billion yuan in June, up 95 per cent from a year earlier. Growth in terms of floor area was up 44 per cent to 6.05 million square metres.

The heavily indebted developer said it had paid back all its perpetual bonds, amounting to 112.94 billion yuan.

Evergrande’s shares in Hong Kong jumped as much as 7 per cent to HK$16.42 in morning trading on Tuesday after it disclosed the sales figures. The stock eased back to HK$15.72 at the close.

“We will speed up releasing of projects in the second half, ” Evergrande said in a statement on its website, adding that it plans to launch sales of 233 new residential projects in the second half, compared to 79 projects in the first six months.

The company expects full year contracted sales to reach 500 billion yuan.

With the clearing of high interest perpetual bonds, investment banks estimate Evergrande’s net gearing to improve to below 200 per cent from over 400 per cent as of the end of 2016.