The Chinese Evergrande assures that the arrest of several of its employees "will not affect its operations"

MADRID, 19 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Chinese real estate group Evergrande has assured that the arrest of several employees carried out by the Chinese Police "will not affect the operations" of the company.

According to a statement sent by the real estate developer to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, those arrested are "certain executives" of its subsidiary Evergrande Financial Wealth, 100% owned by the group.

"The imposition of criminal coercive measures on relevant Evergrande Wealth personnel in accordance with the law will not affect the company's operations," underlines the Asian real estate giant.

The group does not clarify in its statement either the names or the number of executives who have been detained, nor the reasons alleged by the authorities for their arrest.

The Shenzhen Police, in the southern province of Guangdong, where the real estate group is based, said this weekend that among those detained at Evergrande Wealth was a person surnamed Du.

Du Liang is currently the CEO of Evergrande Wealth, but it is unknown if he is among those detained.

The Police have asked the population to report suspicions of fraud through the Internet, telephone, message or email.

The arrest of Evergrande Wealth employees occurred two weeks after the group once again defaulted on payments for its investment products, according to the 'South China Morning Post' newspaper.

Evergrande has been in trouble for several years. A month ago, the company declared bankruptcy in the United States and in 2021 it was already under the spotlight after it was learned that at least half a dozen employees redeemed wealth management products before the scheduled dates, although they were later reprimanded and forced to return the funds.

The group's shares fell almost 5% on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at 8:15 a.m. Spanish time, reaching 0.58 Hong Kong dollars (0.069 euros).

Evergrande was suspended from trading for 17 months and returned to the stock market on August 28, after publishing its overdue accounts for the years 2021 and 2022, in which the company recorded losses for an aggregate amount of 581,211 million yuan (73,369 million euros). to the current change).

Last March, the developer announced a plan to carry out the restructuring of part of its offshore debt, which then amounted to approximately 140,284 million yuan (17,702 million euros).

The Chinese real estate giant, plagued by difficulties in meeting a liability estimated at around 300,000 million dollars (275,665 million euros), failed to meet the self-imposed deadline to announce its restructuring plan at the end of 2022.