Chinese corporate bond defaults likely to continue to increase in 2022, Moody’s says
- Offshore corporate bond defaults rose 28 per cent in first three quarters of 2021
- Property developers, such as China Evergrande Group and Kaisa Group, have faced liquidity crunches in recent months
Corporate bond defaults in China are expected to continue to rise in 2022, as highly indebted property developers and enterprises owned by regional and local governments struggle to access new funding after a multi-year borrowing spree, according to Moody’s Investors Service.
Onshore defaults by Chinese non-financial companies rose by 19 per cent to 98.7 billion yuan (US$15.5 billion) in the first three quarters of this year, while offshore defaults rose 28 per cent to US$7.8 billion this year, reflecting tightened funding access and increased risk aversion by investors, according to the credit ratings agency. The amount of offshore defaults in the first nine months of this year exceeded the entirety of 2020.
Defaults are likely to continue to rise next year, but the number and value of such defaults will remain a small portion of the total Chinese onshore and offshore bond markets, according to Moody’s.
“These financially weak bond issuers raised large amounts of debt during the past several years, when investors were willing to take on risk in exchange for comparatively high yield,” Moody’s analysts Ivan Chung and Jessie Tung said in a new research report. “But regulatory tightening during the past 12 months aimed at controlling these companies’ leverage growth is limiting their access to funding and driving heightened credit differentiation by banks and investors.”
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World’s most indebted developer, China Evergrande Group, buys time to repay more creditors
Beijing’s measures, known as the “three red lines”, have made it more difficult for overleveraged developers to obtain bank loans, cutting off an important source of liquidity.