Country Garden dollar bond default declared: Bloomberg

The news: Embattled China property developer Country Garden has technically defaulted on a dollar bond for the first time ever, Bloomberg reports.

The numbers: Country Garden failed to pay a USD15.4 million ($24.1 million) interest payment after a 30-day grace period that began on 17 September. The failure to pay constitutes an "event of default", according to a notice to bondholders from trustee Citicorp International and seen by Bloomberg. The payment was on an estimated USD11 billion debt, which is only a fragment of Country Garden's USD187 billion in liabilities.

The context: Country Garden, China's largest private property developer, said last week it didn't expect to be able to make all its offshore debt commitments on time. The default puts Country Garden among roughly two-thirds of China's top-50 developers to record delinquencies on offshore debts and is likely to what would be one of the nation’s biggest-ever restructurings.