The company, in a filing on Thursday, said core profit was between about Rmb4-5bn and Rmb5bn ($6634mn and $736mn) in the first six months of 2022, down from Rmb15.2bn a year earlier.
Country Garden, which lost its last investment-grade rating after Fitch downgraded it to junk status on Tuesday, cited a market downturn, the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, and foreign exchange losses for the fall in earnings. Unlike a growing number of its highly leveraged peers, Country
Garden has not defaulted on its debts. The Chinese property sector has been rattled by a liquidity crisis following last year’s high-profile collapse of Evergrande, the world’s most-indebted developer.
Country Garden had managed to retain access to offshore bond markets for refinancing, helping the group maintain some stability at a time when tens of thousands of Chinese homebuyers are refusing to pay mortgages on unfinished apartments.
However, as Beijing has sought to revive the sector with refinancing loans, there are signs that confidence in Country Garden is receding.
The company’s Hong Kong-listed shares slumped as much as 15 percent during a single trading session in July, wiping about $1.7bn from its market value, after it announced a heavily discounted capital raising.
Alicia Garcia Herrero, the chief economist for Asia-Pacific at the French investment bank Natixis, said Country Garden was suffering from worsening investor sentiment towards the sector. There are fears of falling prices as demand wanes and new apartments remain uncompleted, with cash-strapped developers running out of money.
“Now even Country Garden couldn’t basically proceed with presales for new projects because the contagion is so extreme,” she said.
China’s economic planners have for months been moving to unwind efforts to deleverage the sector and encourage people to buy new houses. China’s central bankers have eased lending rules and cut interest rates in a bid to combat the downturn.