Evergrande chairman confident company will 'walk out of its darkest moment

Chairman Hui Ka Yuan said Evergrande will deliver property projects as pledged, fulfil responsibilities to property buyers, investors, partners and financial institutions

China Evergrande Group is confident the company will “walk out of its darkest moment”, the debt-laden property developer’s chairman said in a letter to staff on Tuesday, as nervous global investors fretted about default risks.

In the letter that coincided with China’s mid-autumn festival, Hui Ka Yuan, expressed appreciation for the hard work of employees and said Evergrande will deliver property projects as pledged, fulfil responsibilities to property buyers, investors, partners and financial institutions.

The nation’s second-largest developer, saddled with more than $300 billion in liabilities equivalent to 2% of China’s gross domestic product, is scrambling to raise funds to pay its many lenders and suppliers as it tries to stem a liquidity crisis from tipping it into a collapse.

Evergrande founder and Chairman Hui Ka Yan

“I firmly believe that with your concerted effort and hard work, Energrande will walk out of its darkest moment, resume full-scale constructions as soon as possible and achieve the pivotal target of delivering the property projects as pledged,” said Hui.

Hui did not elaborate how the company could achieve these objectives.

Its Hong Kong listed shares last traded down 3% at HK$2.21 around 0318 GMT, having tumbled 84% so far this year. Evergrande’s debt woes have spread turmoil in global financial markets as investors fear contagion could wreak havoc on the world economy.

(Reporting by Eve Wu in Beijing and Chen Aizhu in Singapore; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman & Shri Navaratnam)