citron research founder andrew left was feeling a modicum of vindication on monday as china’s evergrande looked to be on the brink of collapse sending shock waves through financial markets “yeah i feel vindicated” he told marketwatch in a phone interview on monday back in 2012 left accused the prominent property developer of engaging in aggressive accounting practices and charged that it was actually insolvent based on his research read evergrande isn’t the only reason the stock market is headed for its worst day in 2 months here are 5 other reasons left said that china’s secondlargest property developer’s balance sheet hasn’t changed very much since his original analysis of its problems aside from the scale of the issues “nothing has changed in the 10 years since that research…i just identified when the problems started” left told marketwatch evergrande 6666 is nursing more than 300 billion in debt and holders of evergrande’s approximately 19 billion in dollardenominated bonds are left to wonder what will become of their investments while wall street attempts to gauge the potential spillover effects a collapse could have on china’s property sector and global financial markets left however sees the problem as likely one that will be contained by dint of china’s nature of controlling its economy and propensity to bail out embattled companies “so they are going to do whatever they have to do” to contain the harm to the broader economy and limit spillover left explained he said that investors here however aren’t likely to observe the wheels within the chinese machinery moving because of beijing’s tendency to operate behind a veil when it comes to business matters as the wall street journal described it in a friday article china’s evergrande group turned billions of dollars in borrowed money “into the dream of homeownership for millions of chinese citizens” however that dream was funded on outsize loans that are coming due soon evergrande faces an 835 million interest payment sept 23 on its march 2022 bonds and a 425 million payment on sept 29 on its march 2024 notes according to news reports failure to settle those payments within 30 days of their due date would put evergrande in default sp global ratings on monday said a default by evergrande would cause more than mere ripples in financial markets but would be unlikely to lead to a tidal wave of defaults left believes that a likely intervention by china in evergrande will limit any spillover preventing potentially harmful ripples throughout global markets he speculated “they’ll just take more control of it” left said of china’s government regarding evergrande “it’s not a contagion event” he said almost a decade ago the citron research founder was banned from trading in hong kong markets after losing a civil case against regulators related to his allegations about evergrande the legal dispute lasted more than half a decade and cost him millions left said that his ban from the hong kong market lifts next month but it isn’t clear that he will do much investing there in any event “i got a complete black mark on me for saying everything that’s already turned out to be true” he was quoted as saying in institutional investor last month “it’s hong kong’s attempt to stifle the truth they knew it was going to happen but they didn’t need a short seller to say anything about it” left told marketwatch that part of the reason he believes that evergrande has been allowed to become so highly levered is because of the prominence of its chief executive hui ka yan who founded the company in 1996 in guangzhou as hengda group “obviously china is overbuilt” left said of china’s property market “but i think it is a problem that they let this guy run wild” he said of the evergrande ceo hui boasts a personal fortune of around 107 billion according to forbes hui took evergrande public in 2009 and he owns the majority of the company according to reports the south china morning post last month reported that hui stepped down as chairman of the closely held hengda real estate group in a reshuffling that “raised concerns about his grip on his flagship china evergrande group” worries about evergrande were being blamed for a broad selloff in the market that saw the dow jones industrial average on track for its worst daily fall since oct 28 2020 according to data compiled by dow jones market data the sp 500 index spx and the nasdaq composite index comp were also unraveling down by 27 and 32 respectively monday