Tsinghua Unigroup Defaults Push Up China’s 2021 Offshore Sum

(Bloomberg) -- A series of bond defaults by Tsinghua Unigroup Co. has pushed up the total value of defaults in China's offshore market this year to almost a third of 2020's total.

Unigroup defaulted on $2 billion worth of notes in January, comprising the majority of the $2.7 billion total value. Solar power operator GCL New Energy Holdings Ltd. defaulted on a $500 million note on Jan. 30, while Macrolink Global Development Ltd. missed a payment on a $208 million bond on Jan. 4.

In 2020, 13 Chinese companies defaulted on bonds in the offshore market, worth a combined $8.2 billion. They included Unigroup, a university-backed chipmaker, which suffered its first dollar bond repayment failure in December.

Defaults among Chinese borrowers are likely to increase this year, according to Cecilia Chan, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst. “Despite the government's implementation of top-down policy easing, companies have limited access to refinance their capital, which may worsen if the government looks to tighten monetary policy after a recovery in economic growth.“

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With assistance from Bloomberg