HNA Group, the heavily leveraged Chinese conglomerate, has turned to private equity company Pacific Alliance Group for finance amid pressure to raise cash and cut its debt.
Hainan-based HNA, which started as an airline company before expanding into finance, announced on Wednesday that it had pledged about 1.4bn of shares — amounting to HK$3.1bn ($396m) — from one of its subsidiaries, to borrow from privately owned PAG Holdings.
HNA said in an exchange filing that PAG Holdings, which is domiciled in the Cayman Islands, would have the option to buy up to 82 per cent of its stock, if the value of its pledged shares relative to the loan size falls below a certain threshold.