Evergrande: Real estate giant moves from Shenzhen head office to cut costs

Cash-strapped Chinese real estate giant Evergrande has moved out of its Shenzhen headquarters to cut costs.

Evergrande said it had moved to a property that it owns, but that it was still in the same city.

It comes as smaller rival Shimao Group also said that it has put all of its projects up for sale as it continues to struggle to meet debt payments.

The firms have come under intense pressure in the last six months after Beijing moved to curb their borrowing.

China's property crisis is estimated to have wiped more than a trillion dollars off the value of the sector last year.

Evergrande, the world's most indebted property developer, is struggling to make payments on its more than $300bn (£220bn) of liabilities and has missed payments on its offshore debt.

"In order to save costs, the company has gone through the lease cancellation procedures for Houhai Excellence Center in December 2021 and moved to its own property in Shenzhen," Evergrande said in a statement on its website.

"The company's registered place has not changed and is still in Shenzhen," it added.

In September, the building was the scene of protests by Evergrande investors who crowded its lobby to demand repayment of loans and financial products.

Evergrande's logo was seen being removed from the skyscraper's facade on Monday.

However, it kept hopes alive that it could avoid defaulting for the first time on its onshore yuan bonds.

That came as it extended until Thursday a deadline for bondholders to agree to a six-month deferral on a $706m payment.

Evergrande's Hong Kong-listed shares have lost almost 90% of their value in the last year as investors became increasingly concerned that it could be close to collapse.

Shimao's credit rating was cut again on Monday by major credit ratings agencies S&P and Moody's after it unexpectedly defaulted on a loan last week.

But its shares have soared by almost 20% in Hong Kong this week after it announced it had put all of its projects up for sale and it was reported that it was in talks about selling assets to real estate giant China Vanke.