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on september 13, china evergrande group (in liquidation) (china evergrande, 03333.hk) announced that it had filed a liquidation petition against a subsidiary of the company.

on 12 september, china evergrande (acting on the instructions of the liquidators) filed a winding-up petition with the hong kong court against ceg holdings, a direct wholly-owned subsidiary of the company. edward simon middleton and wong wing-shi of alvarez & marsal limited were appointed by order of the hong kong court on 12 september as joint and several provisional liquidators of ceg holdings. edward simon middleton and wong wing-shi are also joint and several liquidators of china evergrande.

as of the date of this announcement, ceg holdings holds 49.65% of evergrande property's shares. the liquidators believe that the appointment of provisional liquidators will allow the liquidators to preserve the group's assets for liquidation and to seek benefits for the group's creditors and other stakeholders. the company's shares will continue to be suspended until further notice.

the semi-annual report shows that in the first half of this year, evergrande property's operating income was approximately 6.22 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.2%; the gross profit margin was approximately 20.2%, the net profit was approximately 499.8 million yuan, and the net profit margin was approximately 8.0%, a year-on-year decrease of 4.9 percentage points.

in the first half of this year, the total contract area of ​​evergrande property was approximately 794 million square meters, and the area under management was approximately 555 million square meters; the cumulative newly signed third-party area during the period exceeded 21 million square meters, an increase of more than 40% year-on-year, and the total contract amount was approximately rmb 600 million.

as of june 30, evergrande property's cash and cash equivalents increased by approximately rmb 21.6 million from the beginning of the year, and its net assets increased by approximately rmb 437.7 million from the beginning of the year.

in the latest resumption progress released by china evergrande's liquidator in august, it was stated that since the appointment of the liquidator and the suspension of trading of the shares, the liquidator has focused on investigating the business and affairs of the company and taking measures to preserve and realize the assets of the group in order to return value to the creditors and other stakeholders of the group, including the initiation of the litigation disclosed in the august announcement. as of the date of this announcement, the litigation is ongoing and the liquidator will make further announcements on the status of the litigation in due course in accordance with the listing rules.

the lawsuit refers to the liquidator's announcement on august 5 that it would recover from seven defendants, among other things, dividends and remuneration paid by the company based on financial statements for each of the fiscal years 2017 to 2020 that it claimed were misreported, totaling approximately us$6 billion. the seven defendants include xu jiayin, former ceo xia haijun, former cfo pan darong, xu jiayin's spouse or former spouse ding yumei, and three entities associated with xu jiayin and ding yumei.

ding yumei's assets were frozen in the lawsuit, which alleges that ding yumei illegally received approximately $359 million (approximately rmb 2.55 billion) in the form of dividends between 2018 and 2020 through two companies she wholly owned.

according to a report by securities times on september 11, bloomberg news cited the latest ruling of a british court that ding yumei, the ex-wife of xu jiayin, the founder of china evergrande, was allowed to withdraw up to 20,000 pounds per month for living expenses. according to court documents, ding yumei was allowed to pay monthly living expenses and pay up to 350,000 pounds in legal fees in august.

bloomberg reported, citing a court document on august 29, that ding yumei has more than $4 million (about 28.446 million yuan) in a bank account in the uk and currently lives in a luxury apartment in london, which is part of thames city, a project developed by china overseas land & investment limited.

in addition, since china evergrande was issued a liquidation order by the hong kong high court, evergrande's liquidator has also filed a lawsuit against evergrande's former auditor pricewaterhousecoopers. the lawsuit targets pricewaterhousecoopers' "negligence" and "misrepresentation" in evergrande's financial statement reports for 2017 and the first half of 2018.

pricewaterhousecoopers, which was deeply involved in the evergrande whirlpool, was eventually fined 441 million yuan by the regulatory authorities.

on september 13, the china securities regulatory commission issued an announcement stating that recently, it had imposed administrative penalties on pricewaterhousecoopers for failing to perform its duties diligently in the audit of evergrande real estate's annual report and bond issuance, confiscated pricewaterhousecoopers' entire business income of rmb 27.74 million during the period involved in the case, and imposed a maximum fine of rmb 297 million, for a total of rmb 325 million in fines and confiscations.

on the same day, the ministry of finance issued an announcement stating that it had made an administrative penalty decision against pricewaterhousecoopers and related certified public accountants in response to problems discovered during the inspection.

the ministry of finance imposed administrative penalties of confiscation of illegal gains and a fine of rmb 116 million on pricewaterhousecoopers for its illegal conduct in the 2018 audit project of evergrande real estate. at the same time, the ministry of finance imposed administrative penalties on pricewaterhousecoopers, including a warning, suspension of business for six months, and the revocation of pricewaterhousecoopers' guangzhou branch. in this case, the ministry of finance imposed administrative penalties on 11 certified public accountants.