China property meltdown: Country Garden defaults on dollar bond

Chinese developer Country Garden Holdings Co is facing its first-ever default on a dollar bond, highlighting the company’s financial distress amid a wider property debt crisis in China. The failure to pay interest on the bond within the grace period constitutes an event of default, according to a notice from trustee Citicorp International Ltd. Country Garden, one of the most indebted developers globally, did not pay $15.4 million of dollar bond interest by the end of the grace period.