CHINA Vanke is poised to make its first half yearly loss since the Chinese real estate giant went public over 30 years ago, and many other listed Chinese property developers have said they too expect in be in the red as the country’s property market remains in the doldrums, yicai.com reported. Vanke is bracing for losses of between 7 billion yuan (US$981.1 million) and 9 billion yuan in the first six months due to the shrinking scale of real estate development, a narrowing gross margin as well as investment losses, the Shenzhen-based firm said. A year ago it raked in profits of 9.9 billion yuan. This is the biggest projected loss of all the developers to release their first-half forecast so far. Nearly 50 listed Chinese property developers have said they expect to fall into the red in the first six months this year due to sluggish sales and asset impairments. China Fortun Land Development, which is undergoing debt restructuring, is anticipating its net loss to more than triple from a year ago to between 4.5 billion yuan and 5 billion yuan, up from 1.3 billion yuan a year ago. Sino-Ocean Group Holding, which is in the middle of offshore debt restructuring, said Aug. 16 that it anticipates its losses to shrink by as much as three quarters to between 4.5 billion yuan and 6 billion yuan from 18.4 billion yuan last year. Zhongliang Holdings Group expects to go into the red in the first half with losses of between 1.5 billion yuan and 2 billion yuan, compared with profits of 18.6 billion yuan a year ago. Some developers, though, are predicting that they will make money in the first half, but much less than a year ago. Poly Developments and Holdings Group’s net profit contracts 39.2% year-on-year to 7.4 billion yuan while Greenland Holdings forecasts net profit to plunge 90% to 2.4 billion yuan. Losses have become common among property firms since 2022, and things only got worse last year, China Real Estate Information Corp. said in a research note. Some 115 property firms are listed on the Chinese mainland, of which 104 are property developers and 11 are property management companies. (SD-Agencies) | 