by WANG Yuhan

Country Garden, once one of China's largest private homebuilders by sales, said it expects to return to profit in 2025 after years of heavy losses, with the rebound driven mainly by gains from its debt restructuring.

The company said late on March 23 it expects net profit of about 1 billion yuan to 2.2 billion yuan for 2025, compared with a 35.145 billion yuan loss a year earlier. Country Garden said the turnaround was mainly due to non-cash gains recorded after completing its restructuring, rather than an improvement in core operations.

Country Garden has posted losses for three straight years amid a prolonged downturn in China's property sector. Company filings show Country Garden lost 6.052 billion yuan in 2022, 178.4 billion yuan in 2023 and 32.835 billion yuan in 2024.

In early December 2025, Country Garden completed both its onshore and offshore debt restructuring. A person familiar with the matter told Jiemian News the combined process is expected to reduce the company's total debt by more than 90 billion yuan. Its offshore restructuring, covering about US$17.7 billion of debt and approved by the Hong Kong High Court, formed the core of the process, while restructuring plans for nine onshore public bonds totaling about 13.77 billion yuan were also passed.

Unlike a simple maturity extension, the restructuring was designed to reduce debt through up to about US$13 billion in mandatory convertible bonds and the issuance of as many as 15.5 billion shares, generating sizeable accounting gains.

MSCI recently added Country Garden to the MSCI China Small Cap Index, while Stock Connect holdings rose to 17.7% as of March 21 from 15.3% at the end of 2025.

Board chair YANG Huiyan said last year that the restructuring had given Country Garden more room to restore normal operations and described 2026 as a key year in its shift from ensuring project delivery to operational recovery.

Company filings show the restructuring is also being implemented. A March 5 share issuance filing showed the company had issued about 14.233 billion new shares after the restructuring, equivalent to nearly 51% of its pre-restructuring share capital. After the restructuring took effect on Dec. 30, 2025, Country Garden also paid about US$398 million in cash consideration to creditors within the first working week.

The restructuring has helped Country Garden stabilize its balance sheet and return to book profitability. The bigger test now is whether it can revive sales, restore cash flow and deliver projects in China's still-weak property market.