Sunac hit with winding-up petition

Sunac China (1918) received a winding-up petition in Hong Kong, adding to turmoil at the developer as it crafts a debt-resolution plan.

A court hearing is scheduled for November 16, according to a filing, with parties involved including the company and the petitioner Chen Huaijun.

Creditors of embattled Chinese property firms are increasingly seeking court help on debt repayment. A wind-up petition was filed in June against Sunac peer China Evergrande (3333), a case that's been adjourned until November as the company continues work on a restructuring plan the developer aims to deliver as soon as possible.

The duo are among more than a dozen developers which have defaulted on dollar bonds in the past year, fueling a record amount of delinquencies by Chinese issuers this year. Sunac founder Sun Hongbin, dubbed the "white knight" in China for bailing out fellow billionaires and their empires, has been unable to rescue his own from the property crisis that's engulfing the world's second-biggest economy.

In other news, state-owned companies of the Chinese northeastern city of Shenyang bought China Evergrande shareholding in Shengjing Bank (2066) in an auction for 7.3 billion yuan (HK$8.21 billion), Alibaba auction platform showed yesterday.

The Shenyang local authority arranged its subsidiaries to participate in the auction yesterday in order to take over Evergrande's stake in Shengjing Bank.