China Evergrande Group Files Chapter 15 Bankruptcy in New York

Removing risk by de-leveraging. ie 'fessin up your property is worth significantly less than you said, and so you've ripped billions out of the worth of investment because you bankrolled the entire thing on debt.

Every Listed Property Trust in the city centre of every covid affected city in every economy was writing down book value as soon as work from home got real. Up to 30% (my estimate, gut feel) of the value of commercial office property has evaporated judging by bums-on-seats income projection. There isn't the growth you expected so value imputed in leveraged property investment isn't there.

This should echo around the world. About the only insulated cities are the ones with heritage height limits because they don't have the massive vacancy rate rise compared to high rise.

If you think this isn't a big deal, wait until managed investment funds declare their annuals. Everyone has some property exposure. Google, Apple, you name it, will have money in LPT, either directly for funds management or indirectly in weird tax efficient contra deals over office leases.

Some people want to jump off a cliff. Some want to bleed the loss out over time hoping for a way to buy out in some future market rise. Some like the Chinese giants have the government breathing down their necks.

The entire listed property trust model is predicated on perpetual future growth in office space.