China Property Failures Seen as $33 Billion in Trusts Due.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-19/property-flops-seen-as-33-billion-in-trusts-due-china-credit.html

Chinese property trusts face record repayments next year as the real-estate market cools, fueling speculation among bond funds that more developers will collapse.

The trusts, which channel money from wealthy individuals to smaller builders that have trouble obtaining financing elsewhere, must repay 203.5 billion yuan($32.7 billion) in 2015, according to Use Trust, a Chinese research firm. That’s almost double the 109 billion yuan due this year. New issuance of the products slumped to 40.7 billion yuan this quarter, the least in more than two years, Use Trust data show.

“Trust loan defaults will rise substantially,” said Fiona Cheung, head of Asia credit at Manulife Asset Management’s fixed-income team which oversees $44 billion globally. “It won’t be surprising if there are more collapses of China’s property companies. Those companies that suffer from weak sales, that bought land too aggressively last year funded by debt and that have poor access to capital markets will potentially experience cash flow pressure.”

JPMorgan Chase & Co. says the real-estate industry poses the biggest near-term risk to growth in the world’s second-largest economy after new home prices dropped in the most cities in two years last month. China’s banking regulator said on June 6 it will monitor developer finances, a sign of concern defaults may spread after the March collapse of Zhejiang Xingrun Real Estate Co., a builder south of Shanghai.

China is cracking down on off-balance sheet lending known as shadow banking, which includes trust companies and wealth management products issued by banks. The industry was worth 38.8 trillion yuan as of the end of last year, according to a Barclays Plc report last month. Concern that defaults could spread mounted in January after a 3 billion-yuan trust product called Credit Equals Gold No. 1, which had raised money for a failed coal miner, had to be bailed out days before maturing.

‘Big Impact’

“Local governments are keen to see a stabilizing property market,” Chen said. “At the end of the day, the property sector and related industries are critical to China’s economy. No country in the world would like to see a crash in the property market, which would be disastrous.”

Outstanding property trust products totaled 1.15 trillion yuan as of March 31, accounting for 10.4 percent of all types of trusts, according to data posted on the website of China Trustee Association.

“There may be corrections in the property market of some cities,” said Societe Generale’s Yao. “Given the amount of bank loans and shadow banking lending developers have borrowed, the weakening property sector will definitely have a big impact on the financial system.”