It is common for Chinese companies to suspend listed shares ahead of announcements. But there is nothing routine about the cash crisis enveloping Evergrande. This week’s hiatus on trading shares in the world’s most-indebted property developer — and a property management unit it may sell — could be the first of many across the sector.
Suspensions have the legitimate purpose of forestalling insider trading. But Chinese companies also use them as circuit breakers, hoping to stabilise tumbling shares. During a summer rout in 2015, for example, half of all the listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen asked to suspend their shares
A tumbling stock price is as good a reason for Evergrande to halt trading as its mooted $5.1bn sale of a 51 per cent stake in Evergrande Property Services. That price is 90 per cent higher than the last market value. The vital context is that EPS shares have fallen 70 per cent in the past six months. So the profitable unit commands no premium by that reckoning. The proceeds should cover just about five months of cash burn at Evergrande.