Founder of collapsed Chinese property giant Evergrande sentenced to life in prison

What the report says

The founder of China Evergrande Group, Hui Ka Yan, has been sentenced to life in prison by a court in Shenzhen, in a major development in the long-running collapse of one of China’s biggest property developers, BBC World News reported. The court also ordered the confiscation of his personal property. Hui, who is also known as Xu Jiayin, had pleaded guilty in April to charges including embezzlement of assets and corporate bribery.

According to the BBC, the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court also imposed large financial penalties on Evergrande itself, including a fine of 8.82bn yuan, while its real estate arm was ordered to pay 7bn yuan. The ruling is part of the wider legal and financial fallout from Evergrande’s implosion, which severely affected China’s property sector, investors and domestic banks.

Evergrande grew rapidly after being founded in 1996, becoming China’s largest real estate developer and, at one point, a company with a market value above $50bn. Its rise was fueled by heavy borrowing and aggressive expansion. The BBC said the group later came under pressure after Beijing tightened controls on debt in 2020, before collapsing in 2021.

The case matters because Evergrande’s failure has become a symbol of the deeper problems in China’s property market, including unfinished housing projects and the wider slowdown still weighing on the economy. As background, China has continued to work through developer debt problems and falling confidence in the housing market since the sector’s downturn began.