Crisis-stricken China Vanke has auctioned off a piece of Shenzhen land for 2.24 billion yuan (approximately $309.18 million). A document released on Monday shows this price is over 27% lower than what the company paid for the same 19,000-square-meter plot nearly seven years ago.
Vanke is striving to raise funds, having announced last month that it faces short-term liquidity pressures. The company is among many enterprises experiencing widespread cash shortages amidst the Chinese property crisis.
According to an online document uploaded to a Shenzhen trading center on Monday, Vanke's largest shareholder, the state-owned enterprise Shenzhen Metro, along with local company Baishuo Yinghai, won the plot at Vanke's reserve price.
The document indicated that this asset had only one bid, and it was published after the mainland Chinese stock markets had closed.
According to previous documents, Vanke acquired the land at the end of 2017 for 3.1 billion yuan.
In a statement to Reuters, Vanke said this deal reflects its largest shareholder's support for the company "through market-oriented and lawful means, using real cash." Vanke noted that this transaction will help the company release capital from non-core business assets.
Vanke stated that it plans to boost cash flow this year through bank financing and the disposal of more than 30 billion yuan in assets.
Last week, Vanke announced that it had secured a syndicated loan of 20 billion yuan from a group of banks led by the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and would pursue other financing to enhance liquidity.
On Friday, Fitch Ratings downgraded Vanke’s long-term foreign and local currency issuer default rating from 'BB+' to 'BB-', assigning a negative outlook due to its underperformance in sales this year compared to expectations.
