Hui Ka Yan in 2019.
Paul Yeung/Bloomberg
Hui Ka Yan, the founding father of China Evergrande Group who was as soon as Asia’s richest man with a peak internet price of $45.3 billion, was sentenced on Thursday to life in jail on a number of fees together with bribery, fraud and falsifying monetary info, according to the official Xinhua Information Company.
The disgraced entrepreneur, who has come to represent the boom-and-bust cycle in China’s property sector, was sentenced in a Shenzhen court docket. The court docket additionally imposed an 8.82 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) positive on the previously Hong Kong-listed developer, and a separate 7 billion yuan positive on its onshore unit. All of Hui’s private property shall be confiscated, based on Xinhua.
The quantity concerned within the crimes is “exceptionally giant,” and the deeds are “significantly heinous,” Xinhua wrote. It added that Hui and his corporations should obtain heavy punishments as a result of they’ve prompted staggering financial losses and widespread hurt to society.
The fallen property magnate, who had already pleaded responsible in April to fees together with bribery and fundraising fraud in a Chinese language court docket, was first taken into custody in late 2023. As soon as the nation’s largest developer by gross sales, Evergrande touched off a disaster round 2021. On the time, its missed bond funds spooked buyers and led to alarms over the monetary well being of China’s total actual property sector.
It later emerged that the corporate had overleveraged itself – not simply from monetary establishments and worldwide and native bond markets, but additionally from its personal staff — to embark on a debt-fueled enlargement that Beijing later cracked down on. A chronic effort to restructure its over $300 billion in liabilities failed in 2024, when a Hong Kong court docket ordered the agency to be liquidated as a result of its restructuring proposal was “scant.”
A 12 months later in 2025, Evergrande was delisted from the Hong Kong Inventory Change, following a protracted buying and selling suspension. Liquidators are nonetheless attempting to recuperate property from the now collapsed property firm and Hui’s ex-wife, Ding Yumei, to compensate collectors. Ding now reportedly resides in London.
Within the meantime, the Shenzhen court docket additionally sentenced 56 different people associated to the Evergrande case to phrases starting from 22 months to 18 years in jail on fees together with fraud and illicitly elevating funds from the general public. They embody Hui’s sons Xu Tenghe and Xu Zhijian, based on Xinhua. The information company didn’t present a breakdown of particular person sentences and fees.
