ROB ROSE: Evergrande: just how exposed is SA?
It was the train wreck everyone saw coming: analysts had been calling the Chinese property developer a ‘sell’ for years. But as its collapse nears, SA is likely to feel some of the secondary effects nonetheless
Jean Pierre Verster, one of SA’s canniest investors, puts it best in dissecting Evergrande, the Chinese property developer teetering on the brink of defaulting on millions owed to global investors. "We’re still at the beginning of this movie, and right now it looks like a thriller, but it may turn out to be a horror film," he says.
If you haven’t heard of Evergrande, you’d do well to acquaint yourself. It has been billed as a firm with the potential to cause the same sort of precipitous plunge in markets (and your pension) as the collapse of Lehman Brothers — the catalyst for the financial crisis — did in 2008...
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