Evergrande has finally officially defaulted – what does that mean for your money?

Evergrande, the Chinese property giant, has defaulted on its debts. John Stepek asks if it is just the first in a long line of Chinese property companies to fail, and what it might mean for you.

China Evergrande's City Plaza development in Beijing
The Chinese government has cracked down on the property sector
(Image credit: © Andrea Verdelli/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The least surprising bond default in the world happened this week.

Evergrande – the big Chinese property developer – has been declared in default.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.