Real estate giant Kaisa Group Holdings has reached a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement worth 50 billion yuan ($7.6 billion) with Ping An Bank, the 21st Century Business Herald newspaper reported Monday.

The newspaper cited an unnamed source as saying that Ping An's senior management believes Kaisa has a reasonable strategic blueprint and the cities where it is active have good potential.

"Ping An has an optimistic outlook on the development of first-tier cities, especially Shenzhen [in South China's Guangdong Province]. The cooperation is based on Kaisa's unique advantage in land policy and its experience in urban redevelopment," the source said.

This is the first time that an onshore financial institution has moved to support Kaisa, which ran into a debt crisis around the end of 2014.

The company failed to repay a loan from HSBC due on December 31, 2014 totaling about $51.6 million, a situation triggered by the resignation of its board chairman Guo Yingcheng in early December that year, the Xinhua News Agency reported in January 2015.

According to the newspaper report, Ping An Bank, as one of Kaisa's creditors, didn't take any legal action against Kaisa when the latter was mired in debt, which resulted in "mutual trust and deeper understanding" between the two parties.

Guo recently told a meeting of the company's senior managers that Kaisa should make plans for its development, pursue diversified strategies and shoulder social responsibilities, the newspaper cited an unidentified source at Kaisa as saying.

Global Times