Distressed Hong Kong developer New World Development (NWD) has secured investor consent to swap 65 per cent of its perpetual bonds in an exchange plan by an early deadline, but still has work to do to tackle the highest debt load among builders in the city.
Investors tendered US$2.09 billion of the securities by an initial early deadline of November 17, out of a potential amount of as much as US$3.2 billion, a company filing showed.
The company has since extended that early deadline for investors to receive certain incentives to December 2.
Some of NWD’s existing perpetual bonds were trading about 2.5 cents higher Tuesday morning, according to traders, putting them on track for their largest jump in two weeks.
NWD’s five perpetual bonds are currently trading at around 46 cents to 48.5 cents on the dollar and its six senior notes are changing hands between 66 cents and 88 cents, the traders said.
Stung by a property slump in Hong Kong and mainland China, NWD has become a poster child of the broader challenges developers face as they grapple with debt.
One of the first things that many visitors to Hong Kong see is NWD’s 11 Skies mall just beside the airport, a project that it has discussed trying to sell and that prompted it to book an impairment loss of HK$2.7 billion after a valuation revision.
