The parcel, originally acquired by Vanke in December 2017 for 3.1 billion yuan and designated for commercial use, found a buyer quickly having gone up for auction on May 18.
Baishuo Investment took a 34 per cent stake from the sale, while Shenzhen Metro, which owns 27.2 per cent of Vanke, bagged the other 66 per cent.
The deal will help Vanke “revitalise stock assets and focus on its three major businesses of real estate development, property services, and rental housing,” the developer said in a statement.
08:36
A vanishing fairyland dream: how China Evergrande rose, then crashed
A vanishing fairyland dream: how China Evergrande rose, then crashed
The news came just days after Vanke received a 7.8 million yuan lifeline in the form of bank loans guaranteed by its subsidiaries. The developer has also obtained 20 billion yuan in syndicated loans this month from the country’s biggest lenders including China Merchants Bank.
The developer will face a maturity wall in 2025 when 36.2 billion yuan of onshore and offshore bonds come due, according to S&P Global. Vanke said in March that it aimed to trim its interest-bearing debt by over 50 per cent in the next five years.
Vanke has offloaded several of its commercial property holdings recently. In March, it sold a 50 per cent stake in Qibao Vanke Plaza to Link Reit, a property investment fund, for 2.38 billion yuan. In December, the developer sold its stake in luxury hotel chain Banyan Tree’s China units in a deal valued at 480 million yuan.
Fitch Ratings last week downgraded Vanke’s long-term foreign and local-currency issuer default ratings to “BB-” from “BB+”, citing liquidity concerns amid “weaker-than-expected” sales this year.
Moody’s cut Vanke’s rating to junk in early March, citing debt repayment concerns.