Dashed dreams for China Evergrande’s showpiece resort island – Reuters

Dashed dreams for China Evergrande’s showpiece resort island – Reuters

HONG KONG/DANZHOU, China, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The opening last year of the world's largest artificial resort island, developed by China Evergrande Group (3333.HK) for nearly $13 billion, was the realisation of the ambitions of founder Hui Ka Yan, who sketched a design for the project himself.

Now Evergrande is in default to global bondholders, the former Communist Party secretary of the small Hainan island city where Ocean Flower Island was built is serving a life sentence for bribery, and officials in Danzhou city have ordered 39 of the project's towers - roughly 3,900 of the island's 65,000 homes - to be demolished over environmental and construction violations.

The demolition of part of the 2,000-acre, flower-shaped project would add to the woes of what was once China's top-selling developer, which is now reeling under more than $300 billion in debt, struggling to revive sales and repay creditors and suppliers.