HONG KONG (Reuters) – Chinese Estates Holdings, the second-biggest shareholder of embattled developer China Evergrande, said on Thursday it has sold $32 million worth of its Evergrande stake and plans to exit the holding completely.
Chinese Estates, which owned about 6.50% of Evergrande’s equity capital as of Sept. 10 according to Refinitiv Eikon data, said it has mandated a sale of all or part of the remaining 5.66% Evergrande stake either on the market or through block trades.
The disposal mandate will be valid for 12 months from the date of a shareholders’ meeting on Sept. 23 to approve the sale, it said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Chinese Estates said it had already sold 108.91 million shares, or 0.82%, of Evergrande’s issued share capital between Aug. 30 and Sept. 21 for HK$246.5 million ($32 million).
The company estimated that if the entire stake is sold, it will realise a loss of about HK$9,486.3 million ($1.22 billion) for the year ending in December 2021.
($1 = 7.7860 Hong Kong dollars)
(Reporting by Donny Kwok; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Muralikumar Anantharaman)