Founder of collapsed Chinese property giant Evergrande sentenced to life in prison
Evergrande's Creator Receives Life Sentence as Chinese Court Confiscates His Entire Fortune
Ninoda.com – The man who built China's most dominant property empire has been handed the maximum penalty available under the country's criminal code. Hui Ka Yan, the architect of Evergrande Group, received a life sentence alongside a full seizure of his personal assets. He had entered a guilty plea in April on multiple counts, among them the embezzlement of corporate assets and bribery within the company.
The Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court additionally imposed fines totalling 15.82 billion yuan (approximately £1.73 billion or $2.35 billion) on his former enterprises, citing offences that included fabricating financial records and hiding liabilities from creditors.
"Hui's businesses 'seriously disrupted' the Chinese property market, resulting in significant economic losses, the court said."
Family Members Also Sentenced
State media reported that other figures within the Evergrande hierarchy received their own custodial sentences. Among them were Hui's two sons, Xu Zhijian and Xu Tenghe, who were handed prison terms spanning from 22 months up to 18 years.
From Rural Poverty to Asia's Richest Man
Known professionally as Xu Jiayin, Hui grew up in the countryside, raised by his grandmother before eventually entering the property sector. In 1996 he established Evergrande, which he propelled through a strategy of aggressive, debt-financed expansion. The company grew into the largest real-estate developer in China, at one point carrying a stock-market valuation exceeding $50 billion (£36.7 billion). Hui himself was widely regarded as the wealthiest individual in Asia.
The Unraveling
The trajectory reversed sharply after Beijing rolled out a package of debt-control regulations targeting the property sector in 2020. Unable to service interest on its enormous borrowings, Evergrande began liquidating housing stock at steep discounts to keep cash flowing. By 2021 the company had effectively collapsed.
During the April court proceedings, judges heard that Evergrande had collected millions of dollars in pre-sale payments from prospective home buyers but diverted those funds away from the intended construction sites into new developments. The consequence was hundreds of stalled building projects.
Earlier, in March 2024, Hui had been slapped with a $6.5 million fine and a lifetime ban from China's capital markets after his company was found to have inflated its reported revenue by $78 billion.
The company's share price ultimately lost 99 percent of its value before its listing was struck from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in August 2025, ending more than a decade and a half of trading.
Broader Economic Fallout
Evergrande's implosion is frequently cited as the catalyst for a wider downturn in China's property sector, a downturn that continues to drag on the world's second-largest economy. At its peak, the real-estate industry accounted for roughly one-third of China's gross domestic product and served as a critical revenue stream for local governments. Several other major developers have since faced their own financial crises, compounding the sector's prolonged stress.
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