Sunac China (1918) sought bankruptcy protection in New York as the defaulted developer moved to protect assets while its offshore debt restructuring nears its conclusion.
Such international efforts sometimes require a Chapter 15 petition in the course of finalizing a restructuring. Sunac's application is for obtaining US court approval to validate Monday's creditor vote that backed the builder's plan, the company said.
Peer China Evergrande (3333), which is also working to restructure its offshore debt, last month made its own Chapter 15 filing.
China's 16th-largest developer by contracted sales, Sunac first defaulted on a US dollar bond in May 2022.
The company unveiled its offshore debt restructuring plan in March, and within several weeks investors holding more than 75 percent of those borrowings accepted the proposal.
Sunac said that those with 98 percent of the value of claims at a so-called scheme meeting voted in favor of the restructuring offer. A sanction hearing to have a Hong Kong court affirm the results has been scheduled for October 5.
Meanwhile, Country Garden (2007) is said to have missed a US$15.4 million (HK$120 million) bond interest payment on Monday. However, there is a 30-day grace period before a default can be called. It won bondholder approval on the last batch of eight onshore yuan notes it sought to stretch out repayments after the vote was extended three times and a proposal to add a credit enhancement was made.
A Monday filing said that the developer's unit Guangdong Giant Leap Construction would provide no less than 200 million yuan (HK$214.5 million) as a pledged guarantee for the note if the payment extension passed.
