Three of China’s biggest property developers have lost their audit firms, as Covid-19 quarantines disrupted accounting work, in a collective setback for investors as they would have to wait several months longer to get a glimpse of the financial results of some of the country’s biggest debtors. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) resigned as the auditor of Guangzhou R&F Properties on April 28, ceased acting for Shimao Services Holdings a day later, according to separate filings late Friday night to the Hong Kong stock exchange. The firm quit as Hopson Development’s auditor on January 27, citing inadequate access to necessary information. Grant Thornton resigned from Kaisa Group Holdings on April 29, the Shenzhen-based developer said separately. Deloitte stepped down at China Aoyuan on January 26, exchange filings showed. The surprise resignations may reignite concerns about the financial transparency and accountability of China’s highly leveraged property developers, with US$33 billion of debt maturing offshore and 150 billion yuan (US$22.7 billion) due onshore from March to December, according to Fitch Ratings. R&F was unable to agree with PwC on a mutually acceptable timetable to complete the audit for its 2021 financial results, because its management and employees have been quarantined under Covid-19 restrictions in Hong Kong and in mainland China, according to the statement. “It is in the best interest of the company, its shareholders and creditors to move forward and complete the audit as soon as practicable, and hence the board resolved to suggest that PwC resigned as auditor so that the company might engage another qualified external [firm],” R&F said, adding that it appointed BDO Limited as auditor. If last year was bad for Evergrande, Kaisa and Fantasia, just wait for 2022 Shanghai-based Shimao was unable to provide the information requested by PwC concerning 923 million yuan of revenue from a number of new businesses such as engineering and community services, because employees had been stopped from moving about under the citywide lockdown in China’s commercial centre since April 1, the developer said. Shimao “could not agree with PwC on the timetable and possible additional fee for completing the audit,” and had asked the auditor to resign, the company said, adding that Moore Stephens CPA Limited had been appointed as temporary auditor. The same disagreement occurred at Kaisa, where it could not agree with Grant Thornton over the timetable for completing its audit. ‘China’s Motown’ is paralysed as Shanghai’s lockdown idles plants “Grant Thornton stated that they could not reach a consensus with the company on the audit timetable [for] the 2021 annual results and hence agreed to resign as the auditor,” Kaisa said, naming Elite Partners CPA as temporary auditor. “Grant Thornton has also confirmed that, except for not being able to mutually agree on an audit timetable, there are no other matters in its resignation that need to be brought to the attention of shareholders.” Still, the unexpected resignations are unlikely to instil confidence in China’s biggest debt-owing property developers, the targets of an industry-wide sell-off for more than a year, said Louis Tse Ming-kwong, managing director at Wealthy Securities. “If we are talking about transparency and if you cannot get information, of course, there is no transparency in a company,” he said. “I think the investing public should look after themselves because if there is no information you cannot vouch for a company.”