We can't get a loan!

Chinese property developers are suffering an acute lack of capital, the chief executive of newly listed Beijing commercial property developer Soho China told the Financial Times on Monday.

Zhang Xin said Chinese developers had little access to bank financing beyond very short-term loans for working capital. The central government has in recent years told banks to limit loans to developers in a largely unsuccessful effort to cool soaring property prices.

“The biggest constraint, by far, is capital,” said Ms Zhang, one half of the husband-and-wife team managing the company. “If we choose one project, we are giving up five or six other opportunities.” [The husband is media figure Pan Shiyi.]

Soho China, whose shares rose 15 per cent on its first day of trading in Hong Kong on Monday after raising $1.7bn in an initial public offering, is one of several Chinese property developers to tap Hong Kong’s capital markets for funds through initial offerings recently...

...Ms Zhang said that the majority of roughly 500 Beijing-based developers are little-known, privately held companies that have to rely on pre-selling units to raise funding.

Oh those poor, suffering real estate developers!

Your correspondent, like many entrepreneurs in China, has tried to get a tiny bank loan in China for a small but stable services company with collateral and a proven financial track record; I was laughed at.