China’s Xinyuan Real Estate announced that holders of $207.68m worth (90.7%) of its $229m 14.2% bonds due October 15 have agreed to exchange them for new bonds and cash. Having successfully completed the exchange offer, the company has avoided possible default. The company needed holders of at least 90% of the bonds to tender and that if the exchange did not go through, Xinyuan might not be able to repay the notes and leading to a possible restructuring. The exchange offer was launched earlier this month and was later downgraded by Fitch to C, after the rating agency classified it as a Distressed Debt Exchange (DDE). IFR notes, “Xinyuan did not say how many bondholders had accepted each option, but said it would issue US$205.401m in principal amount of new bonds and pay out US$19.1m in cash”. Separately, Ernst & Young Hua Ming LLP resigned as Xinyuan’s independent accounting firm and will be replaced by CPA Limited.
