On April 16, Times China Holdings Limited announced that on April 15, Hang Seng Bank Limited (the "Petitioner") filed a winding-up petition (the "Petition") with the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the "High Court") against the Company, regarding the alleged financial obligations of approximately US$173.2 million and HK$731.4 million respectively.
The High Court has fixed the first hearing date for the petition as July 3.
As soon as the news came out, the share price of Times China Holdings plummeted rapidly, once falling by nearly 50%, which had a great impact. As of the close, Times China Holdings fell 36.97% to close at HK$0.15 per share, with a total market value of 315 million yuan.
With respect to the Winding-up Petition, the Board of Directors of Times China Holdings is of the view that the Petition does not represent the interests of other shareholders of the Company and may damage the value of the Company. The Company will seek legal means to resolutely oppose the petition and take all necessary actions to protect its legitimate rights and interests.
Times China Holdings also said in the announcement that the company intends to continue to actively communicate and cooperate with its overseas creditors on the restructuring plan, with the aim of announcing the relevant terms to the market as soon as possible. At the same time, the Company will strive to maintain positive and good communication with the Petitioner, uphold the principle of fairness to other creditors, and negotiate with the Petitioner on reaching an amicable solution as soon as possible.
According to the annual report of Times China Holdings, the annual revenue in 2023 will be 21,010.8 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 14%, and the annual loss will be 4,344.6 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 54.5%.
For the future prospects, Times China Holdings once said in the announcement that the group will continue to actively sell, pay close attention to the collection, reduce costs and increase efficiency, and maintain stable operating cash flow. Continue to optimize the structure of urban renewal projects, and accelerate the transformation and return on investment of urban renewal projects. Actively carry out debt management, optimize debt structure, accelerate the disposal of non-core assets, actively cooperate with policies to strive for project financing support, and maintain stable operation.
On April 5, judging from the first-quarter sales announced by Times China Holdings, the sales dilemma has not been improved, and its sales fell sharply by 72.01% year-on-year to only 1.526 billion yuan.
In addition, according to the Financial Associated Press, at present, Times China Holdings has 7 outstanding US dollar bonds with a balance of 3.15 billion US dollars, of which 6 have defaulted, involving an amount of 2.65 billion US dollars.
Recently, many real estate companies have been petitioned for liquidation, including Country Garden and Shimao Group.
On April 8, Shimao Group announced that China Construction Bank (Asia) Corporation filed a winding-up petition against the company with the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on April 5, involving the company's financial obligations amounting to about HK $1,579.5 million.
On February 28, Country Garden announced that the petitioner, Ever Credit Limited (Kingboard Group), filed a winding-up petition against the Company in the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on February 27, 2024, concerning an unpaid term loan with a principal amount of approximately HK$1.6 billion and accrued interest between the petitioner (the lender) and the Company (the borrower).
It is worth mentioning that a so-called winding-up petition is not the same as winding-up.
A winding-up petition is a winding-up petition filed by a creditor and/or a member of the company to the court, after which the court will hear the winding-up petition and if the winding-up petition is approved, the court will issue a compulsory winding-up order to sell the company's assets to pay off debts, distribute the remaining property, etc. However, the failure of the petition for winding-up means that the company will not be sold off.
In other words, any creditor has the right to apply, but the application does not mean that it will be liquidated, which needs to be decided by the court after the trial, if a company can resume operations through its accelerated sales, debt restructuring, etc., so as to better protect the interests of the majority of creditors, then the application will basically be dismissed.