China Systemic Risk: HNA Group Denies Liquidity Problem, It’s Only “End-Of-The-Year Tightness”

Every few days at the moment, it seems, we return to the subject of systemic risk in China related to its big four highly-indebted conglomerates, HNA, Anbang, Evergrande and Dalian Wanda.

Our main source of concern recently has been HNA, after it issued a bond with less than one year to maturity with the extortionately high coupon of 9%. This prompted us to ask whether China was experiencing the beginning of its Minsky moment? The reason for our continuing focus on HNA is its $28bn of short-term debt which matures before the end of next June, much of it accumulated during a binge of acquisition-driven growth which saw it become a major shareholder in Deutsche Bank, Hilton Worldwide and others.

Last week, as we discussed, S&P downgraded HNA’s credit rating by one notch from b+ to b, five levels below investment grade. in another sign that HNA is under pressure from the Chinese government and its creditors, CEO Adam Tan announced that it was ditching its acquisitive strategy, while considering the IPO of Gategroup, a company it only acquired last year for $1.5 billion.

We also noted how HNA businesses, even ones with supposedly good credit ratings, were stepping up fundraising moves in the domestic bond market at high coupon rates. For example, Hainan Airlines, the company’s core business, issued bonds at junk rates despite having “top ratings from local credit assessors”.

Although cancellations of bond offerings in China had reached their highest level since April, due to the rout in the domestic market, we remarked how HNA didn’t appear to have that “luxury”. While it may not have the luxury, it’s been forced into cancellations. On Wednesday, Hainan Airlines scrapped a 1 billion yuan ($151.2 million) of perpetual bonds to repay a maturing debt. This from Bloomberg.

“Our company decided to cancel this bond sale due to the market environment, as we’re getting toward the end of the year,” the Hainan Airlines unit said in a reply to questions from Bloomberg News on Wednesday. “Hainan Airlines has a sound business operation.”