Move over Evergrande. There is a new poster child of China’s protracted real estate crisis — Country Garden.

A financial industry group that makes determinations on credit events ruled Thursday that the property firm had suffered a “failure to pay” episode and that it happened on October 18, according to a notice on the website of the Credit Derivatives Determinations Committees.

The ruling follows separate reports from Bloomberg News and the Financial Times this week that the homebuilder, once the country’s largest, had defaulted on an international bond for the first time after failing to make payment within a grace period that expired last week.

Country Garden has not responded to requests for comment by phone or email. Citigroup, reportedly the bond’s trustee with authority to enforce its terms, declined comment.

The developer, which has $190 billion in liabilities, had dodged default on multiple occasions in the past month. But persistent weakness in China’s property market and a difficult refinancing environment had hobbled its ability to raise enough cash to service debt of $15 billion falling due by June 2024. Earlier this month, it warned investors that it could default.

The company is now heading towards a debt restructuring, and possibly a messy financial collapse that would send new shockwaves through China’s sputtering economy.

Until last year, Country Garden was China’s biggest real estate developer, specializing in residential property.

Here’s what to know about the rise and fall of Country Garden, and the future of China’s once red-hot property sector.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/26/business/how-country-garden-became-the-new-face-of-chinas-spiraling-property-crisis/index.html