For the past two decades, Evergrande has taken advantage of cheap credit to massively expand its real estate empire. The company reported $108 billion in annual sales and some $356 billion in assets. Its portfolio is massive: Evergrande owns over 1300 real estate projects across 280 cities in China, has a property services management arm involved in almost 2800 projects across over 310 cities in China, has other ventures across unrelated industries, and directly employs over 200,000 people.

In a page out of the WeWork playbook, Evergrande fancied itself as more than a loss-leading, debt-burdened real estate business. The company turned its health care business unit into an electric vehicle company despite never making a single car. In July, Evergrande was considering an IPO for Evergrande Spring, its bottled water business (you read that right). At the same time, Evergrande was also considering an IPO for its tourism business and an incoherent theme park featuring fairytales from across the world. Guangzhou FC, China's most successful soccer team, is owned by Evergrande (with an Alibaba stake) for some reason.

The situation has grown so desperate for the cash-strapped firm that it demanded employees loan Evergrande money at a high interest rate in order to keep their bonuses, only to stop paying back those loans soon after. The situation has sparked protests led by home buyers waiting on unfinished homes and employees who have lost their life savings.

Research firm Capital Economics estimates that some $200 billion of Evergrande's debt is actually cash put down for 1.4 to 1.6 million unfinished properties, and a huge number of justifiably furious purchasers of these unbuilt homes.

Fast forward to 2021, Evergrande headlines are all the media rage, especially with the Lehman, the lucky 13th anniversary this week. But, what are credit markets telling us this time? As you can see above – far right. Credit risk is calm on Asia banks with exposure to China, no difference to speak of. Central bank liquidity is so abundant, there is NO way Lehman would have failed today.

Always with an important lens – our friend, Jens Nordvig reminds us – “foreign involvement is small in China. It is true that the high-yield bond market has a sizable USD component (mostly foreign). But relative to the US, where subprime exposure was sold around the world, it is a much more local (controllable) system.” It has been clear for months, there is Evergrande credit contagion – it’s just inside China at the moment.

Evergrande is the most-indebted property developer in the world. Its on-balance-sheet liabilities amount to nearly 2 percent of China’s annual GDP, and its off-balance-sheet obligations add up to as much as another 1 percent.

Evergrande group has more than $300bn of liabilities, about $20bn of which are offshore dollar-denominated bonds. The Chinese government has focused on completing work on its hundreds of projects, where homes have typically been sold to ordinary buyers before completion.

But this mortgage strike isn’t entirely unpredictable. Homebuyers have every reason to be angry. Most of the projects were begun by developers who have defaulted. China Evergrande Group led the pack, accounting for an estimated 35% of the total projects that faced mortgage revolts, data compiled by CLSA shows. One such project in eastern Jiangsu province was launched before the Covid-19 pandemic. Construction has been suspended since last August, while property values in its neighborhood has come down by about 10%.