Yet the payments due last week were for bonds issued under a Chinese scheme where state-owned financial institutions guaranteed debt issued by a handful of major private developers, including Country Garden. About 33.7 billion yuan ($4.6 billion) of bonds have been issued under the scheme, according to Bloomberg.
If the beleaguered developer failed to pay within a five-day grace period, then the guarantor—in this case, state-owned China Bond Insurance—would pay instead.
On Saturday, Country Garden said that it managed to find the money for the interest payments after all. That means Beijing won’t need to step in to help the developer pay its debts.
Analysts thought the decision was strange given Country Garden’s earlier missed payments, with Daiwa analyst William Wu calling it “unusual” in comments to the Wall Street Journal.