Numbers don't lie, you just need to be looking at the right ones.
That's the problem for investors searching for the next trouble spot in the Chinese real estate sector, as industry giant China Evergrande Group lumbers towards what is expected to be the country's largest-ever corporate default. The figures on the books sometimes don't tell the full story.
Since Beijing started clamping down on corporate debt in 2017, many real estate developers have turned to off-balance-sheet vehicles to borrow money and skirt regulatory scrutiny, analysts and lawyers say.