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| When Country Garden, the biggest developer in China’s increasingly troubled real estate sector, published its annual report in April, the cover design exuded hope: a phoenix spreading its wings. |
| 碧桂园是中国日益陷入困境的房地产行业中最大的开发商。今年4月，碧桂园发布年报时，封面设计散发出希望的气息：一只展翅的凤凰。 |
| The company said the image showed that China’s economy was “back on track” and that this year would see “growth soaring to new heights.” |
| 该公司表示，这幅图显示中国经济“重回增长轨道”，今年将看到“展翅高飞”。 |
| That was wishful thinking. |
| 那只是一厢情愿的想法。 |
| Shortly after the report’s release, China’s nascent economic recovery lost steam and an already sluggish real estate market started to collapse. At Country Garden, presales of unfinished apartments, a crucial indicator of future revenue, plunged more than 50 percent in June and July, twice the rate of decline in the preceding five months. |
| 报告发布后不久，中国初露苗头的经济复苏失去了动力，本已低迷的房地产市场开始崩溃。在碧桂园，作为未来收入的关键指标的未完工公寓预售量在6月和7月暴跌了50%以上，是前五个月跌幅的两倍。 |
| For the past three years, as dozens of major property developers defaulted after years of excessive borrowing, Country Garden was an outlier. But last month, it missed two interest payments — signaling that it, too, was at risk of financial collapse, with $187 billion in debt. |
| 过去三年，数十家大型房地产开发商在多年过度借贷后违约，碧桂园是个例外。但是上个月，这家公司有两笔利息未能按时偿付，这标志着负债1870亿美元的碧桂园也面临着财务崩溃的风险。 |
| Country Garden must come up with $22.5 million this week, the end of a grace period for the missed payments. On Friday, the company won a last-minute approval from creditors to postpone repayment of $537 million in yuan-denominated bonds, originally due on Monday, until 2026, according to documents shared by Country Garden. |
| 碧桂园必须在本周拖欠宽限期结束时拿出2250万美元。碧桂园分享的文件显示，上周五，该公司在最后一刻获得了债权人的批准，将原定于周一到期的39亿人民币计价债券延期至2026年偿还。 |
| Last week, after reporting a $7.1 billion loss for the first six months of 2023, Country Garden said there were “material uncertainties which may cast significant doubt” on its ability to avoid bankruptcy. The company is scrambling to raise cash and keep its creditors at bay, selling off stakes in properties and issuing shares at a discount. |
| 上周，碧桂园在公布2023年前六个月亏损515亿元后表示，存在“重大不确定性”，可能会让人对其避免破产的能力“产生重大怀疑”。该公司正忙于筹集现金，并通过出售物业股权和折价发行股票等方式来安抚债权人。 |
| It has been a dramatic fall for Country Garden. The company’s improbable rise, from a regional homebuilder to a nationwide behemoth, tracked China’s own meteoric ascent. Now, its collapse reflects the speed and severity of the country’s real estate meltdown, which threatens to derail the broader economy. |
| 对于碧桂园来说，这是一场戏剧性的垮塌。该公司从一家地区性住宅建筑商成长为全国性巨头，其不可思议的崛起与中国自身的迅速崛起相伴而行。现在，它的崩溃反映了中国房地产崩溃的速度和严重程度，有可能会破坏更广泛的经济。 |
| “As giant as Country Garden is, it’s a canary in the coal mine,” said Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economics professor, who has written extensively about China. |
| “碧桂园虽然巨大，但它是煤矿里的金丝雀，”经常就中国问题撰文的哈佛大学经济学教授肯尼斯·罗格夫说。 |
| To bolster the teetering real estate market, China’s financial regulators on Thursday rolled out a series of measures, including lower minimum down payments for first-time buyers and a reduction in interest rates on existing mortgages. |
| 为了提振摇摇欲坠的房地产市场，中国金融监管机构周四推出了一系列措施，包括降低首次购房者的最低首付比例，以及降低现有抵押贷款的利率。 |
| These and previous measures may not be enough to save Country Garden, which is struggling to pay its debts. |
| 这些和之前的措施可能不足以拯救正在努力偿还债务的碧桂园。 |
| Many Country Garden bonds trade for pennies on the dollar, suggesting that lenders have low hopes of getting repaid. And the company’s share price is now below 1 Hong Kong dollar, a precipitous fall for what was once one of China’s largest private companies, whose stock traded above 17 Hong Kong dollars five years ago. |
| 碧桂园的许多债券都以极低的价格进行交易，这表明贷款人获得偿还的希望很低。该公司的股价现在不到一港元，作为曾经的中国最大私营企业之一，这是一个断崖式下跌，五年前，该公司的股价还在17港元以上。 |
| Country Garden was founded by Yang Guoqiang, a former farmer and construction worker who was raised in such dire poverty that, according to a profile on a government website, he didn’t wear shoes for the first 17 years of his life and he almost dropped out of school because he couldn’t afford the $1 tuition. |
| 碧桂园的创始人杨国强曾是农民和建筑工人，据一家政府网站上的个人资料显示，他在极度贫困的环境中长大，在人生的前17年里，他没有穿过鞋子，还因为付不起七元钱的学费差点辍学。 |
| The company started developing properties in 1997, around the time that China began to change the rules for private ownership of real estate. When it went public in 2007, the company told investors that one of its strengths was a large reserve of low-cost land to develop. It also said it could build faster and cheaper than competitors. |
| 公司于1997年开始做房地产开发，当时中国开始改变房地产私人所有权的规定。2007年上市时，公司告诉投资者，其优势之一是拥有大量可供开发的低成本土地储备。它还表示，与竞争对手相比，它的建造速度更快，成本更低。 |
| Two years before the public offering, Mr. Yang transferred his 70 percent stake to his second daughter, Yang Huiyan, who was then a manager in the company’s procurement department. When Country Garden’s stock listed, the 25-year-old Ms. Yang became the richest woman in Asia, with a fortune eventually estimated as high as $29 billion. Ms. Yang, who was co-chair with her father until this March, when she assumed the position exclusively, remains Country Garden’s majority shareholder. |
| 在公司上市的两年前，杨国强将70%的股份转让给二女儿杨惠妍，她当时是公司采购部的经理。碧桂园的股票上市后，25岁的杨惠妍成为了亚洲最富有的女性，她的财富估值最终达到了290亿美元。杨惠妍一直与父亲共同担任董事会主席，直到今年3月才单独担任该职位。她仍然是碧桂园的多数股东。 |
| Country Garden expanded rapidly, moving in lock step with the government’s urbanization push. It branched out beyond its home province of Guangdong and pushed aggressively into China’s lesser developed third- and fourth-tier cities, benefiting from a boom after 2015 when China, as part of a national “shantytown redevelopment” plan, started paying residents cash to trade in dilapidated shacks in smaller cities and towns. |
| 碧桂园迅速扩张，与政府的城市化进程步调一致。2015年之后，作为全国“棚户区改造”计划的一部分，中国开始向居民支付现金，换取较小城镇的破旧棚户区。得益于这股热潮，该公司将业务拓展到家乡广东省以外，并大举进军中国欠发达的三四线城市。 |
| The company succeeded with a high turnover strategy: build fast, sell fast and cash out fast. This allowed Country Garden to sell cheaper homes while still reaping larger profits than rivals. As real estate became the backbone of China’s economy and the main investment for many Chinese households, Country Garden emerged as one of the country’s largest companies that wasn’t state-owned. |
| 该公司的成功之处在于高周转率策略：快速建造、快速销售、快速套现。这使得碧桂园能够以更便宜的价格出售房屋，同时仍能获得比竞争对手更高的利润。随着房地产成为中国经济的支柱和许多中国家庭的主要投资，碧桂园成为中国最大的非国有企业之一。 |
| Country Garden has sold more homes than any developer over the past six years, by appealing to buyers like Zhou Qizhou. |
| 过去六年，碧桂园通过吸引周其洲（音）这样的买家，卖出了比任何开发商都多的房子。 |
| In 2019, he bought a Country Garden apartment in Enshi, a smaller city in central China. Although Mr. Zhou was working in Shanghai, he felt pressure to buy a home in case he couldn’t afford one later. He purchased a 115 square-meter (about 1,200 square feet) apartment for around $125,000, impressed by the construction speed and low price, even though he described the construction quality as so-so. He only regrets that he bought right before the market softened. |
| 2019年，他在中国中部较小城市恩施买了一套碧桂园的公寓。虽然在上海工作，周其洲还是感到压力，要买下一套房，以防以后买不起。他以90万元的价格购买了一套115平方米的公寓，尽管他认为建筑质量一般，但建筑速度和低廉的价格给他留下了深刻印象。唯一感到遗憾的是，他是在市场疲软之前买的房。 |
| “At the end of the day, Country Garden is still a big brand,” Mr. Zhou said. |
| “你不管再差是吧，我觉得碧桂园，它也还是一个大牌子，”周其洲说。 |
| But the once-insatiable demand for real estate has evaporated and China’s economy is floundering. Companies like Country Garden have been strained by the effects of the crippling Covid lockdowns, a government crackdown on reckless borrowing by property developers and years of prioritizing state-owned businesses over private enterprises. The economic downturn has been more severe in smaller cities, where the local economies did not kept pace with the building boom. Now those cities are awash in empty apartments. |
| 但是，一度难以满足的房地产需求已经消失，中国经济也在苦苦挣扎。严重的疫情封锁、政府打击房地产开发商胡乱借贷，以及多年来优先考虑国有企业而非私营企业，这些都给碧桂园等公司带来了压力。小城市的经济衰退更为严重，因为当地经济没有跟上建筑热潮的步伐。现在，这些城市充斥着空置公寓。 |
| When Country Garden recently revealed its enormous first-half loss, it said it had “failed to grasp the potential risks associated with its disproportionately large investment” in smaller cities. |
| 最近披露其上半年的巨额亏损时，碧桂园表示，它未能把握对小城市“投资比例过大……等潜在风险”。 |
| Until recently, Country Garden had been hailed as a survivor of the industry turmoil. While Beijing did little to backstop other major home builders, including Evergrande, the now bankrupt property developer that once rivaled Country Garden for market supremacy, the government has displayed a greater willingness to support the firm. |
| 直到最近，碧桂园一直被称为行业动荡的幸存者。虽然北京几乎没有支持其他主要住宅建筑商，包括曾经与碧桂园争夺市场霸主地位、现已破产的房地产开发商恒大，但政府对碧桂园表现出了更大的支持意愿。 |
| When China’s financial regulators issued a 16-point guide in November to aid the property industry, Country Garden was placed on a “white list” of quality developers to prioritize for financial aid and credit lines from state-owned banks, according to Chinese media reports. |
| 据中国媒体报道，去年11月，中国金融监管机构发布了一份16点指导意见，以帮助房地产业，碧桂园被列入优质开发商的“白名单”，优先获得国有银行的财务援助和信贷额度。 |
| For years, Country Garden has maintained close ties with the ruling Communist Party. Mr. Yang, its founder, served on the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a national political advisory body. Country Garden proactively supported policy initiatives like the distribution of sewing machines and farm equipment in poor areas under the banner of “poverty alleviation.” |
| 多年来，碧桂园一直与执政的共产党保持着密切的联系。该公司创始人杨国强曾在全国政治顾问机构中国人民政治协商会议任职。碧桂园积极支持向贫困地区发放缝纫机、农用设备等“扶贫”相关的政策举措。 |
| Even as Country Garden’s finances have deteriorated, it has prioritized the wishes of policymakers by completing the construction of presold homes. It finished nearly 700,000 presold units last year and another 278,000 units in the first half of this year. |
| 即使在财务状况已经恶化的情况下，碧桂园还是优先考虑了政策制定者的意愿，完成了预售房屋的建设。去年预售了近70万套，今年上半年又预售了27.8万套。 |
| Even so, in its latest earnings report Country Garden said it was focusing on improving its cash flow and cutting costs. It now employs about 58,000 people, fewer than half the full-time staff it had in 2018. The company declined to provide additional comment beyond its public announcements. |
| 即便如此，碧桂园在其最新的收益报告中表示正专注于改善现金流和削减成本。该公司目前拥有约5.8万名员工，不到2018年全职员工的一半。公司拒绝在公告之外提供更多评论。 |
| In the earnings report, the company said it was “deeply remorseful” about its current predicament, but added that it “will never succumb to passive defeatism.” When Mr. Yang addressed employees at a company meeting early this year, he urged perseverance. |
| 该公司在财报中表示对目前的困境感到“非常内疚”，但补充说“坚决不躺平”。今年年初，杨国强在一次公司会议上向员工发表讲话时，敦促他们要坚持不懈。 |
| “Do not fall down before dawn,” he said, according to the company’s WeChat account. “We must live till spring comes, and spring will surely come.” |
| 根据该公司的微信公众号，他说：“不要在黎明前倒下，要活到春天的到来，而春天是必定会到来的。” |
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