恒大清盘人将在2027上半年首次派息，两年追回约4.36亿美元、不足460亿美元债权的1%

HONG KONG -- The liquidators of China Evergrande said on Thursday that they will make an initial payment to creditors in the first half of 2027 in the form of dividends, in a key milestone for the world's most indebted property developer.
A progress report filed by Evergrande's joint liquidators stated that around $436 million was recovered over more than two years of effort, representing less than 1% of $46 billion in total debt claims filed against the defunct company. Of the recovered funds, only $11.6 million was realized from assets directly held by Evergrande itself, with the rest coming from its subsidiaries.
The announcement marks a major step for Evergrande creditors awaiting payout since the company defaulted on its offshore debt in 2021. Still, the meager debt recovery rate highlights the uphill battle the liquidators face as they comb through the company's multilayered corporate structure in China and overseas. The process has also confirmed investor concerns that offshore debtholders of Chinese companies are structurally subordinate to their domestic counterparts.
The liquidators conceded that the recovery prospects from Evergrande's mainland assets held through local subsidiaries -- a significant part of its total assets -- are "remote." More than 650 of Evergrande's 3,000 onshore entities have entered into bankruptcy procedures, while the key onshore unit, Hengda Real Estate, was fined at least 4.1 billion yuan ($610 million) by Chinese regulators for financial fraud.
The team added that access to Chinese accounting systems was cut off after Evergrande entered liquidation in early 2024, adding to the challenge.
The liquidators said they plan to challenge a 1 billion Hong Kong dollar ($130 million) private settlement between Hong Kong's securities regulator and former Evergrande accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. They are seeking damages of $8.5 billion from the company's Hong Kong and Chinese units.
In addition to the settlement payment, PwC was asked to pay a HK$310 million fine by the Securities and Futures Commission, while two of its former partners were slapped with sanctions.
The liquidators' report also flagged an academic donation. They said Evergrande made payments totaling around HK$1.2 billion to a U.S. university, partly to establish a research center, without a clear commercial rationale. A Financial Times report identified the U.S. school as Harvard University and said Evergrande made the donation to fund COVID-19 research at the time.
In addition, the liquidators questioned Evergrande's rationale for amassing an art collection at a total cost of $170 million in just 18 months from March 2016. The acquisitions included works by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and Andy Warhol. "Of the 110 artworks in the collection, 95 were acquired from a single dealer in Hong Kong," it said. "It is not clear why the Group acquired an art collection of such value and scale, which was not in the ordinary course of the Group's business."
Out of 107 artworks that came into the liquidators' possession, 96 have already been sold, generating net proceeds of around $28.8 million. That constitutes a loss compared to their acquisition cost, they said.
The liquidators have made progress disposing of Evergrande's private jet, saying that an agreement was reached with a new buyer for the Airbus A319. The plane has been grounded in Guangzhou and has not been airworthy since 2023.