Country Garden Selloff Shows Chinese Developer Worries Spreading

(Bloomberg) -- China’s largest developer is feeling the pain of dwindling investor confidence as a debt crisis sweeps across the country’s real estate sector.

Country Garden Holdings Co. securities tumbled after it emerged the real estate firm on Wednesday failed to generate sufficient investor demand for a potential $300 million convertible bond. Shares fell 7.8% Thursday, the most in nearly four months, while its dollar bond due 2031 dropped 2.7 cents on the dollar to 72, on pace for a record low, Bloomberg-compiled prices show. 

Country Garden, whose contracted sales have topped all Chinese peers each of the past five years, is becoming a bellwether of contagion risks. One of the country’s higher-quality builders, with investment-grade ratings at two of the major international risk assessors, the firm has long been considered relatively immune to the credit crunch hitting the real estate sector. 

Signs that even the nation’s stronger property firms are struggling to raise debt may reinforce concerns that continued inability to access primary markets will accelerate a wave of defaults that drove payment failures to a record high last year. Country Garden didn’t immediately respond to a Bloomberg request for comment on Thursday.

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