By WANG Yuhan
“As long as our inventory assets are sold as expected, Country Garden will maintain positive assets over the next ten years,” said YANG Huiyan, chairman of Country Garden on Friday.
The pronouncement comes as Country Garden faces up to the magnitude of its continuing problems.
Yang’s modest goals for the next 12 months, are to ensure deliveries and protect credit. The company’s immediate focus is to sell existing inventory through more effective marketing and to improve cash flow.
She expects deliveries to exceed 400,000 in 2024. By November, Country Garden had delivered 500,000 houses this year, while cutting administrative expenses by nearly 60 percent compared to 2021.
However, in the first 11 months of this year, the company achieved sales revenue of 210 billion yuan, ranking seventh in the industry. Last year, Country Garden was at the top of the list with sales revenue of 440 billion yuan.
Country Garden has 15 outstanding dollar bonds with a total of US$9.3 billion (70 billion yuan). Yang’s family, as controlling shareholders, have poured approximately HK$41 billion (37 billion yuan, US$5 billion) through various means and without reducing their shareholding.
Affected by the overall softness in the real estate market, Country Garden’s sales performance in 2023 is also facing a decline.
Early this month, Country Garden reorganized its management structure for the umpteenth time, consolidating the company’s original 14 regions into seven.
And as if that was not enough, more running repairs are to come: Country Garden aims to “further enhance” business to deal with the current real estate situation.
Whether all this will do anything to improve Country Garden’s dire finances, only time will tell.
