Evergrande: Crisis-hit developer raises more cash as new deadline looms

Cash-strapped Chinese real estate giant Evergrande has raised around $145m (£107m) just before a deadline for a fresh debt interest payment.

The company has sold a 5.7% stake in media firm HengTen Networks Group which produces films and television shows, and operates a streaming platform. Evergrande needs to make overdue interest payments of $148m this week.

It has so far avoided defaulting on its debts by making overdue payments just before 30-day grace periods expired.

Evergrande owned a majority stake in HengTen at the beginning of this year, but has since made a number of share sales as it tries to raise money to meet its financial commitments.

HengTen's other big corporate shareholder is Chinese technology giant Tencent - it bought a 7% stake from Evergrande for about $266m in July.

The latest share sale now makes Tencent the media company's biggest shareholder, with a stake of almost 24%. Apart from HengTen, Evergrande also sold its UK-based electric motor making business Protean in the last week.

It didn't say how much it earned from the sale of the company, which its vehicle manufacturing unit bought for $58m in 2019. However, Evergrande has struggled to sell some of its other assets in recent months as it attempts to raise the money needed to make debt interest payments.

Last month, the company halted trading in its shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange ahead of an announcement on a "major transaction".

Then, after a 17-day suspension Evergrande said a $2.6bn deal to sell a stake in its property services unit had fallen through as it was unable to agree to the deal's terms.

Evergrande's $300bn debt mountain and the company's problems with making debt repayments have triggered fears that its potential collapse could send shockwaves through global markets.