(Bloomberg) — South Korean authorities unveiled measures on Monday to support an “orderly soft landing” for real estate project-finance debt, as rising delinquencies in the sector threaten to be a drag on the economy.
The government will refine criteria used to evaluate the feasibility of real estate project finance sites, seeking to pinpoint which developments are no longer viable and should be sold off in a restructuring process, according to a joint statement by the nation’s Financial Services Commission and Financial Supervisory Service.
The country’s project finance debt is a potential threat for local financial markets and the economy, with economists at Citigroup Inc. estimating that 111 trillion won ($81 billion) of such borrowing is troubled. A debt restructuring by Korean builder Taeyoung Engineering & Construction Co. earlier this year rekindled memories of a default in 2022 by the developer of a Legoland amusement park that sent some corporate borrowing costs to over decade-highs.
“There might be bit more stress than what the government expects during the restructuring process,” said Lee Kyoung-rok, a credit analyst at Shinyoung Securities Co. in Seoul. “But I agree with the government that there won’t be a significant impact on financial companies since they’ve already booked large provision.”
Authorities will closely monitor the situation of financial markets, construction companies and the nonbank sector to make sure that the government is ready to immediately respond, if necessary, as problem debt is restructured, regulators said. While that may increase costs for financial companies, regulators said Monday they don’t expect non-bank financial firms to become insolvent because of larger provisions.
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Authorities rolled out the plan to hasten restructuring of unfeasible projects and prevent any potential crunch in the finance and construction sectors. The government has already put in place more than 94 trillion won of measures to contain stresses from the property sector and support financial and credit markets.
Financial Services Commission Secretary General Kwon Dae-young said in a briefing that authorities expect as much as 95% of the project sites to proceed as normal. Only 2-3% of the sites will probably be put up for sale, he said.
The government will introduce guidance for the sale of unfeasible sites, and those where debt repayments are six months or more overdue will be put up for sale, according to authorities. By contrast, government will give projects that have sufficient business value full support, including providing new funds, to enable them to proceed.
Total property project-finance debt was 230 trillion won at the end of 2023, according to regulator estimates. Risks remain, however, as the government aims to implement the measures, according to analysts including those at Fitch Ratings.
“We expect challenges to the smaller non-bank financial institutions that are more exposed” to riskier loans to linger, said Matt Choi, director of Asia-Pacific financial institutions at Fitch. “It appears that their fundamentals, for example, that of the savings banks, are quite weak relative to the severity of difficulty in the property development sector.”
Korean banks and insurers will jointly form a syndicated loan worth one trillion won to support the restructuring of unfeasible project sites. That can increase to as much as five trillion won if needed, the authorities said.
“The plan itself contains sufficient measures by increasing the size of government rescue funds and including participation from banks and insurance companies to inject new liquidity,” said Jeong Woo Park, an economist at Nomura Holdings Inc. “The success will depend on how quickly the government can force construction companies and NBFIs to give up on their troubled assets.”
(Updates with more details of government’s plan)
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