The travails of Hong Kong-listed Kaisa, which so recently seemed resolved, have been prolonged once more.

Yesterday, sector peer and anticipated white knight Sunac announced it would ride away from its deal to buy out the majority shareholder in the Shenzhen property developer. All is not lost, however.

Kaisa’s chairman and seller in the cancelled transaction, Kwok Ying Shing, will take back his shares. He returned last month from a — substantially unexplained — 15-week absence. The original deal will be cancelled and Sunac’s prepayment to Mr Kwok returned. Business in Shenzhen, where the company’s projects had been suspended, is back to normal, just as that market is showing signs of a pick-up in property prices and sales volumes. The whole episode seems no worse than a bad dream.