A Chinese court has sentenced Evergrande Group founder and former chairman Xu Jiayin, also known as Hui Ka Yan, to life imprisonment after finding him guilty of multiple financial crimes, marking a dramatic conclusion to the downfall of one of China’s most prominent property tycoons.
The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court handed down the first-instance verdict on Thursday, sentencing Xu to life imprisonment, stripping him of his political rights for life and ordering the confiscation of all his personal assets.
The court also imposed substantial fines on two Evergrande entities. Evergrande Group was fined 8.82 billion yuan (about US$1.3 billion), while Evergrande Real Estate Group was fined 7 billion yuan.
The verdict followed Xu’s guilty plea in April to a series of charges. Reports on the proceedings said the charges included illegally absorbing public deposits, fundraising fraud and corporate bribery, among other financial offences.
The court also ordered that proceeds linked to the illegal activities continue to be recovered, with responsible parties required to compensate for any shortfall.
Xu built Evergrande into one of China’s largest property developers during the country’s decades-long real estate boom. The group expanded aggressively through high leverage and extensive borrowing before its liquidity problems erupted into a wider debt crisis.
Evergrande was eventually saddled with more than US$300 billion in liabilities, making it one of the world’s most heavily indebted property developers. Its financial troubles became a major symbol of the risks associated with excessive leverage in China’s property sector.
China Evergrande was subsequently ordered into liquidation by a Hong Kong court in January 2024 after the developer failed to present a workable restructuring proposal to creditors.
