HONG KONG – China Evergrande Group faces more than a thousand lawsuits involving 350 billion yuan (S$67 billion), underscoring the challenges for the world’s most indebted developer as it seeks to restructure its borrowings.

The 1,426 cases at the end of April were related to its mainland property unit Hengda Real Estate Group, and involved more than 30 million yuan each, Evergrande said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange late on Thursday. 

Evergrande is among several real estate companies in China that defaulted amid a housing meltdown in the past two years. The embattled property developer has yet to win enough support from creditors for its overseas debt restructuring plan. Hengda’s unpaid debts due, excluding onshore and offshore bonds, were about 272.5 billion yuan at the end of April, the statement said. 

China’s property sector has avoided collapse but remains a major financial risk to the world’s second-largest economy.

Signs of renewed weakness are emerging in the residential market, with a rebound in home sales slowing in May to just 6.7 per cent from more than 29 per cent in the previous two months.  

Evergrande also ran into other troubles this week, when its money management arm said it fell short on payments for investment products.

The company has been disposing of assets to raise money for the obligations, but due to setbacks it will not be able to pay the targeted amount to investors, it said.

The developer missed payments on 40 billion yuan of wealth management products in 2021, sparking nationwide demonstrations and putting pressure on the government to find a solution to avoid further unrest.

At the time, more than 70,000 people bought the products, including many Evergrande employees, as the cash-strapped developer tapped them for funding. BLOOMBERG