China State Construction to buy stake in Dubai resort

CSCEC (Middle East) Wins Road Project of Abu Dhabi International Airport 　　On April 24, 2014, China State Construction Engineering Corporation (Middle East) (LLC) received the Letter of Acceptance issued by Abu Dhabi Airport Company for the project of MTC Landside main road and secondary road, with the winning price of US$95 million. 　　The Project, with the work period of 790 days, is to be in EPC mode covering a 2-4 driveway main road of 5.5km long and 8km-long secondary road. Works include bituminous pavement of 170,000sqm, 11 pre-stressed tension bridges, backfilling, retaining walls and 4 substations as well as other ancillary facilities. 　　The MTC Landside road project is the first infrastructure project of Abu Dhabi Airport Company undertaken by CSCEC Middle East. This will help further consolidate the company’s business operation in infrastructure in Abu Dhabi. (from Overseas Operations) ========= China State Construction to buy stake in Dubai resort Tue, Jun 25 09:53 AM EDT DUBAI, June 25 (Reuters) - China State Construction Engineering Corp (CSCEC), one of the world's largest construction firms, said on Tuesday it had agreed to invest in a $1 billion resort project in Dubai - its first real estate investment in the Middle East. CSCEC declined to specify how much money its Middle Eastern arm would put into the Viceroy Dubai Palm Jumeirah project, on which it is the main contractor. The project is being developed by SKAI Holdings, a Dubai-based real estate investment firm. Including a hotel and furnished residences, it is scheduled to be completed in 2016. Yu Tao, chief executive of the CSCEC's regional arm, said in a statement that such projects could appeal to the rising number of Chinese individuals investing in real estate and other alternative investments abroad. Dubai's property developers have announced billions of dollars worth of new projects this year as the emirate's property market has begun to recover from its 2009-2010 crash. With many international banks cautious about lending because of unstable global markets, analysts have said many developers may find it difficult to arrange enough bank loans for their projects, forcing them to look at other ways to raise money. (Reporting by Andrew Torchia; Editing by Dinesh Nair) =============== Status in the construction industry: ** MCC is China's biggest engineering and construction firm in the metallurgical industry. ** MCC is also active in the global construction sector, with business in dozens of countries including India, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Germany, South Africa and Australia. ** MCC ranks 380th among the world's 500 biggest enterprises in 2009 selected by U.S. magazine Fortune. ** MCC is smaller than the country's construction industry leader, China State Construction Engineering Corp (CSCEC) (601668.SS), which had total assets of 204 billion yuan at the end of 2008. [ID:nSHA330047] ----------- Sources: company statements, analysts and Reuters calculations ($1=6.83 Yuan) (Reporting by Shanghai newsroom; editing by Edmund Klamann) * China State Construction Engineering Corp (CSCEC) , one of the world's largest construction firms, said on Tuesday that it had agreed to invest in a $1 billion resort project in Dubai - its first real estate investment in the Middle East. REFILE-China State Construction posts $344 mln H1 net profit Tue, Aug 25 20:18 PM EDT (Refiles to fix typo in Chairman in fourth paragraph) SHANGHAI, Aug 26 (Reuters) - China's biggest homebuilder, China State Construction Engineering Corp (601668.SS) said on Wednesday that its attributable net profit reached 2.35 billion yuan ($344 million) for the first half of this year. The company's sales revenue was 111.3 billion yuan for the first half, it said in a note to the stock exchange. The firm raised $7.3 billion in a Shanghai listing last month, the world's biggest initial public offering this year. CSCEC Chairman Sun Wenjie told reporters last month that the company's sales in the first half of this year totalled 112.4 billion yuan and that he expects the firm's sales to reach 300 billion yuan next year. (Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Ken Wills) China State Construction to issue up to $3 bln bills Mon, Mar 15 20:13 PM EDT SHANGHAI, March 16 (Reuters) - China State Construction Engineering Corp (CSCEC) (601668.SS), the country's largest homebuilder, said on Tuesday it planned to issue up to 20 billion yuan ($2.93 billion) worth of bills. The funds raised by the bills, with a maturity of no more than 10 years, would be used to supplement working capital and pay back bank loans, the company said in a statement filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. It did not give details on the timing or pricing of the issue, which will require approval from a shareholders meeting scheduled for April 9. ($1=6.825 Yuan) (Reporting by Rujun Shen and Farah Master; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner) ========================== China firms slow payments, file lawsuits, as unpaid debt weighs on finances Wed, May 14 17:22 PM EDT By Matthew Miller and Tripti Kalro BEIJING/BANGALORE (Reuters) - As China's economy continues to cool, companies are waiting longer and finding it harder to get paid for goods and services they've already sold, leading to record amounts of receivables - and potential write-offs - on corporate balance sheets. At Longyuan Construction Group Co, an east China builder of high-rise offices, apartments and highways, receivables last year inched up 4.9 percent to 4.1 billion yuan ($657.3 million), while on average collection times extended to 95.2 days, compared with 76.3 days for 2011. Slow collection of money owed is causing Longyuan to delay its own payments to steel and cement suppliers, Zhang Li, the company's board secretary, told Reuters, in a ripple effect that is being repeated across the economy. "If you don't pay me and I pay others, aren't I just a sucker?" said Zhang. "I'm not that stupid." Growth in China's economy dipped to an 18-month low in the first quarter and may be on track this year for its weakest showing in more than two decades. Beijing policymakers are moving to put the world's second largest economy on a more sustainable footing less driven by exports and investment, however tightening credit and a faltering real estate market have raised concerns about a sharper-than-anticipated slowdown. A Thomson Reuters survey of data on China's more than 2,300 stock market-listed firms illustrates the impact on corporate payments, with company receivables - the accounting term for money owed by customers - on average reaching $160.49 million at the end of last year, more than double the $65.9 million average at the end of 2009. Over the same period, the median collection time for billings crawled up from 71.4 days to 90.42 days. It was the first time China's market-listed firms averaged more than 90 days in a decade. "It's a pretty loud warning bell," said Paul Gillis, an accounting professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management. "Companies cannot pay-off their receivables in a slowing business cycle. Some of these receivable may not get paid, which means you'll see a lot of write-offs in the future." DISTRESSED REAL ESTATE SECTOR Reuters News contacted more than 65 firms where receivables are on the rise and interviewed officials at 12 of the companies. Not surprisingly, the worst problems were in the most distressed sectors of the economy, such as real estate. As a downturn in the property market gathered pace late last year, more than four years after Beijing began introducing a series of cooling measures designed to head off an asset bubble, payments to builders and materials suppliers slowed. Unpaid bills among construction companies, cement makers and related firms are now creating interlocking, triangular debt that stretches across broader parts of the economy. China West Construction Co, a small Sichuan-based manufacturer of concrete products distributed mainly in China's northwest, reported net cash flow from operations last year turned negative by 41.76 million yuan, driven by a 23.2 percent jump in accounts receivables, which reached 3 billion yuan. The firm also wrote-off 226.37 million yuan in bad debt, a 23.51 percent rise from a year earlier. In a statement, the company attributed its problems to a slowing economy along with real estate controls, forcing construction companies to reduce their payments and use notes in lieu of cash. Those include acceptance bills, which guarantee payments only at a future date. INTER-CONNECTED PROBLEMS China West's biggest debtor is also the company's largest shareholder, China State Construction Engineering Corp (CSCEC), the country's leading building and real estate conglomerate. CSCEC, together with at least 17 subsidiaries, owed China West more than 1 billion yuan at the end of December. Separately, CSCEC reported that its own payables rose last year by 17.7 percent, to 214.95 billion yuan, with outstanding payments to construction-related and real estate development firms comprising more than half of the total. China West's biggest unpaid supplier was Xinjiang Tianshan Cement Co., which also is a 3.68 percent company shareholder. Xinjiang Tianshan, in turn, owed payments to several affiliated companies, including 440.1 million yuan to Sinoma International Engineering Co. Sinoma's biggest shareholder is China National Materials Co, the cement equipment and engineering services behemoth, which also holds a 35.5 percent stake in Xinjiang Tianshan. The web of cross-ownership among debtors mirrors a similar increase in inter-company loans that has raised the prospect of a wave of defaults in the indebted corporate sector. Chinese companies granted a net 2.55 trillion yuan ($411 billion) in so-called entrusted loans in 2013, nearly double the 1.28 trillion yuan total in 2012. Average collection periods for receivables extended to more than 196 days for electrical equipment makers, 188 days for companies in the building products' sector and more than 171 days for machinery manufacturers, Reuters data shows. "Credit is tightening, funding costs are higher, and companies are delaying payments," said Ivan Chung, Moody's Investors Service's senior vice president for Greater China credit analysis. "While there's rising liquidity pressure, there's still the expectation that these companies eventually will get paid." LAWSUITS To collect unpaid bills, some Chinese firms are taking the increasingly common - though often fruitless - step of launching lawsuits against deadbeat customers. Xiamen Changelight Co, a LED chip maker for the solar industry, filed three lawsuits over the last three years for unpaid bills. They included a 10.2 million yuan claim against Shenzhen Junduoli Industrial Co, a privately-owned LED maker whose owner allegedly ran off without repaying debts of 90 million yuan, including a 30 million yuan loan to China Construction Bank. Xiamen Changelight said in its annual report it would file another 12 lawsuits over receivables and damages. CSCEC Group was involved in more than 1 billion yuan in unsettled lawsuits, including many involving project payments, the company said in its annual report. At Longyuan Construction, Zhang Li and her colleagues had 13 unsettled lawsuits at the end of last year. One involves a claim of more than 213.7 million yuan against Shanghai Electric Group Co., the power generation and equipment conglomerate. Winning a claim in court doesn't necessarily mean a company will collect, especially if the losing firm has gone broke or has had its assets stripped. "It takes one or two years at best, and may take as long as five years," Zhang said. (Additional reporting by Patturaja Murugaboopathy and the Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Alex Richardson) =========================================== China demands wall around wealth management sector to cut risk Sat, Jul 12 06:08 AM EDT SHANGHAI, July 12 (Reuters) - Chinese banks must create a firewall around increasingly popular wealth management services, the country's banking regulator urged, in order to avoid any contagion from higher risk products spreading to normal bank loans. Banks must establish a separate department to carry out wealth management business by the end of September, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said on its website on Friday. Thirsting for higher returns, China's wealth management sector has exploded in recent years, hitting around 12.8 trillion yuan ($2.06 trillion) by the end of May. But the opaque nature of the sector has fed concerns about its health. New rules require banks to set up separate departments for risk management, accounting and statistical analysis for wealth management services, and give details for each wealth management product individually. China has been pushing to strengthen regulation of its wealth management sector as it looks to diversify funding channels in an economy historically over-dependent on bank lending for finance. But with its growth expected to slow to a 24-year low of 7.3 percent this year, there are growing concerns about the risk associated with the financial sector, especially the so-called "shadow banking" sector of off-balance sheet lending. China needs to reorganize its wealth management industry as it is unduly boosting funding costs and encouraging savers to behave like gamblers by chasing lucrative short-term returns, a senior central bank official said in May. ($1=6.2034 Chinese Yuan) (Reporting by Adam Jourdan; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) ======================