By Ben Otto

Sunac China Holdings Ltd. shares slid after the Chinese property company said it will delay the release of its financial results amid uncertainties concerning credit downgrades and efforts to extend payment deadlines for onshore bonds.

Shares fell as much as 22% to 3.85 Hong Kong dollars (49 U.S. cents) in early Tuesday trading, taking its year-to-date losses to more than 60% and putting it on track for its second-biggest one-day loss since it listed in 2010. Sunac Services Holdings Ltd. shares slid as much as 9.9%.

The drop comes after Tianjin-based Sunac said late Monday that it won't be able publish its 2021 financial results by the end of the month, which would lead to a suspension in trading of its shares from April 1.

The company said it needs more time to complete its audit work, citing "issues relating to [its] offshore loans" arising from recent downgrades of the company's credit ratings by international rating companies, as well as its proposed extension of payment deadlines for domestic bonds of a real-estate unit.

In the past two weeks, Fitch Ratings, S&P Global Ratings and Moody's Investors Service have all released downgrades on the company, citing concerns including the company's liquidity and refinancing risks.

The company postponed its board meeting scheduled for Thursday. It didn't specify an expected date for the release of its annual results.

Investment bank Nomura said that in its view, "the still-weak physical property sales momentum under the government's mild policy adjustments and the resurgence of Covid-19 cases across major cities has led to serious pressure on Sunac's cash positions, as well as eroded financial institutions' confidence in the company."

"We believe Sunac's delay in result announcement will further weigh down property sector sentiment," it said, adding that current policy fine-tuning measures "are not strong enough to reignite developers' contracted sales momentum."

Nomura maintained a buy rating with a HK$16.70 target price--more than triple the stock's previous closing price--but said it is reviewing both views along with earnings forecasts, pending more financial details from Sunac.

Sunac last week flagged an expected 85% drop in profit for the year, saying results were affected by credit losses on receivables and impairments on inventory, as well as investment losses.


Write to Ben Otto at ben.otto@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

03-28-22 2306ET