China: Systemic Risk Surges As HNA’s High Coupon Borrowing Binge Accelerates

In early November 2017, we returned to one of our favourite subjects, systemic risk in China related to its big four highly-indebted conglomerates, HNA, Anbang, Evergrande and Dalian Wanda. In particular, we asked whether the extortionately high coupon of 9% on an HNA dollar bond issue, with less than one year to maturity, marked the beginning of China’s Minsky moment? As we noted at the time, HNA has $28 billion of short-term debt maturing before the end of June 2018, much of it accumulated during an acquisition binge over the last two years, which has seen it become a major shareholder in companies such as Deutsche Bank AG and Hilton Worldwide Holdings.
Speaking to Bloomberg at the time, Warut Promboon, managing partner at credit research firm, Bondcritic, noted…
‘Nine percent is really high for one year. Basically, it tells you that the worry is real.”
In a sign that HNA is under pressure, both from the Chinese government and its creditors, CEO Adam Tan announced last week that the company was reversing its previous strategy. From Reuters.
HNA Group CEO Adam Tan said the acquisitive company is making adjustments to conform with national policies, and has sold some investments and real estate projects to improve its liquidity, domestic media reported on Tuesday.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Dec 4, 2017.