a major shareholder in china evergrande group halted the trading of its shares which had been rising sharply in hong kong chinese estates holdings ltd which is controlled by hong kong billionaire joseph lau and his wife chan hoiwan on wednesday morning requested that its shares be suspended pending the release of an announcement related to takeovers and mergers the move came after shares of chinese estates rose as much as 43 in less than an hour of trading the jump was driven in part by china evergrandes recent progress in resolving its liquidity issues said siu fung lung an analyst at ccb international capital the debtladen property giant on wednesday morning said it had agreed to sell a stake in a local chinese bank for around 155 billion chinese estates shares surge isnt particularly surprising for the company given its small market capitalization and high stake concentration in a few shareholders mr lung said chinese estates last week said it was planning to sell all of its stake in china evergrande potentially incurring losses of more than 1 billion in the process on monday the company sold over 130 million evergrande shares cutting its total shareholding to 468 from 566