EXPLAINER: Chinese builder’s debt struggle rattles investors

BEIJING (AP) — Global investors are watching nervously as one of China’s biggest real estate developers struggles to avoid defaulting on tens of billions of dollars of debt, fueling fears of possible wider shock waves for the financial system.

Chinese regulators have yet to say what they might do about Evergrande Group. Economists expect Beijing to intervene if Evergrande and lenders can’t agree on how to handle its debts. But any official resolution is expected to involve losses for banks and bondholders.

The government “doesn’t want to be seen as engineering a bail out” but is likely to organize a debt restructuring to “reduce systemic risk and contain economic disruption,” Tommy Wu of Oxford Economics said in a report.

Evergrande is the biggest casualty yet from the ruling Communist Party’s effort to rein in surging debt levels Beijing sees as a possible threat to the economy.

Investors are watching how the developer headquartered in the southern city of Shenzhen near Hong Kong handles an interest payment due Thursday on one of its bonds.

A look at Evergrande and anxiety about its debt troubles:

—WHAT IS EVERGRANDE?

Evergrande Group, founded in 1996, is one of China’s biggest builders of apartments, office towers and shopping malls and one of its biggest private sector conglomerates.

The company says it has more than 200,000 employees and supports 3.8 million jobs in construction and other industries. Evergrande says it has 1,300 projects in 280 cities and assets worth 2.3 trillion yuan ($350 billion).

Evergrande’s founder, Xu Jiayin, was China’s richest entrepreneur in 2017 with a net worth of $43 billion, according to the Hurun Report, which follows China’s wealthy. He has tumbled down the list as internet industries boomed but still ranked as China’s richest...