China's Evergrande shares plunge as much as 87% in Hong Kong

Shares in troubled Chinese property giant Evergrande plummeted about 80 percent in Hong Kong on Monday after the lifting of a 17-month trading suspension.

The resumption of trading came after the company said in a filing on Friday that it had met guidelines set out by the bourse, including belatedly publishing its financial results and complying with other listing rules.

Once China's largest real estate firm, Evergrande defaulted in 2021 and is saddled with more than $300 billion in liabilities, becoming a symbol of the nationwide property crisis that many fear could spill over globally.

Its shares plunged as much as 87 percent during morning trading, slashing its market value from a peak of more than $50 billion in 2017 to around $590 million as of lunch break.

The company on Sunday reported fresh losses for the first half of the year amounting to 33 billion yuan ($4.53 billion) -- an improvement on the 66.4 billion yuan in losses reported in the same period last year.

But its cash assets fell from $2 billion last year to $556 million, reflecting its dwindling liquidity.

China's property market "cooled down significantly" in the first six months of the year and saw new defaults in the sector, "further exacerbating the volatility in the market", Evergrande said.

"Based on the principles of respecting international restructuring practices and treating the rights and claims of all creditors in a fair and equitable manner, the Company steadily pushed forward the work related to the restructuring of its offshore debts," the firm added.

In March 2022, the Hong Kong stock exchange suspended trading in Evergrande shares after the company failed to publish its 2021 financial results.

Its results for 2021 and 2022 were published last month, showing a net loss of more than $113 billion over the two-year period.

The company risked being delisted if its shares were suspended from trading for 18 months, according to Hong Kong stock exchange rules.