(Yicai Global) Oct. 16 -- The Hainan Airlines Holding shareholders' meeting has shot down a resolution to sell all the company's stake in its wholly-owned unit Beijing Guosheng to Beijing Houpu Yunde Investment Management Partnership, a firm in which real estate colossus China Vanke holds a 99 percent stake.

HNA Holding cited the shareholders' belief the sale was too bargain basement as the main grounds for rejection in an announcement the firm issued yesterday. This marks the first time that stakeholders have nixed one of the company's asset dumps, the South China Morning Post reported.

Stockholders hope the company further studies and comes up with a better deal and will help to devise a more advantageous plan based on the market situation for re-submission to the meeting.

The price was just too low for Haikou, Hainan-province-based HNA Group, an insider told state news outlet The Paper. The company, which owns Hainan Airlines, China's biggest private carrier, had planned to offload its stake in the realty unit for CNY1.3 billion (USD184 million), per a Sept. 21 announcement.

Formed June 28 with registered capital of CNY41 million, Beijing Guosheng plies the property management, property development and office and commercial building rental businesses. The Beijing HNA Plaza office complex is its prime asset.

The 18-story development in use since February 2009 is in the booming Sanyuan Bridge area in the city's eastern Chaoyang district along the Beijing Capital International Airport Expressway and has a construction area of 39,000 square meters. 

The book value of the subsidiary's assets was about CNY1.2 billion (USD170 million), including debt of CNY444 million and net assets of CNY740 million.

HNA Group has fueled its growth through leveraged global asset buys since its inception 25 years ago. A looming debt crisis has forced the company to scramble to shed its assets to vent funding pressure since the start of the year and it has since sold off properties and company holdings in droves.

The group has jettisoned realty in Hong Kong and New York worth CNY21.5 billion, while also divesting CNY9.8 billion in Hilton Grand Vacations and Deutsche Bank, to name but two.

Vanke's almost CNY1.3 billion bid was nearly 20 percent lower than average, but China's second-largest real estate conglomerate may well have also promised to assume debts or offer other financial accommodations, analysts with DTZ Real Estate believe.

Editor: Ben Armour