The liquidation of the world’s most indebted property developer has proved challenging as the majority of Evergrande’s units and assets are onshore and many of them have been seized by creditors

Liquidators of China Evergrande Group said on Tuesday they have sold about $255 million of its assets 18 months into China’s largest debt liquidation process and taken control of more than 100 of the company’s subsidiaries.

They have received creditor claims totalling $45 billion, the liquidators said in a filing, significantly higher than liabilities of $27.5 billion in 2022 in the last disclosure.

The liquidation of the world’s most indebted property developer has proved challenging as the majority of Evergrande’s units and assets are onshore and many of them have been seized by creditors.

Given the scale and complexity of the company, Evergrande’s liquidation could take more than a decade to be completed, according to offshore investors.

While the pace of asset disposals for debt recovery was faster than market expectations, the value was still far below the creditors’ claims.

The developer’s shares will be delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on August 25 after they failed to resume trading per listing rules, the filing said.

Shares of Evergrande, once China’s top developer which was listed in Hong Kong in 2009, are facing delisting after having been suspended from trading since January 29, 2024, the day the company received a liquidation order from the Hong Kong High Court.

The liquidation order came after Evergrande failed to provide a viable restructuring plan for its $23 billion offshore debt amid a debt crisis in the Chinese property sector that erupted in mid-2021. The company collapsed with more than $300 billion in liabilities.

Many property companies across the country have defaulted since, and China’s property market, once a key growth driver for the world’s second-largest economy, has been in a multi-year tailspin despite repeated government attempts to revive weak consumer demand.

Developers face deteriorating cash flow but their bondholders are resisting taking heftier losses on their investments, delaying negotiations between companies and creditors, restructuring advisers have said.