REAL estate behemoth Evergrande yesterday missed a 30-day grace period deadline to pay debts worth over £82m, taking the company another step closer to default.

The indebted developer posted a statement to the Hang Seng stock exchange to confirm that state representatives had taken the majority of seats on a new risk management committee.

In a statement Evergrande said it "believes that the experience of the committee members, as well as the resources they would be able to utilise, will be beneficial for the group to overcome the challenges it currently faces."

The creation of a state controlled risk committee is a tactic that Beijing has used to ease the collapse of other heavily indebted companies. Liu Zhihong was named co-chair of the new committee according to the Financial Times.

She is already a senior executive from Guangdong Holdings, a conglomerate controlled by the Guangdong provincial government.

Evergrande's shares fell to their lowest level on record on Monday as investors cleared out the developer over fears it will collapse.

With a new risk committee at the helm of the company shares were up 1.8 per cent yesterday. However, they are down over 87 per cent this year to date.

(c) 2021 City A.M., source Newspaper