Key facts
- China Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan sentenced to life imprisonment.
- Hui Ka Yan's personal property ordered confiscated.
- Evergrande Group fined 8.8 billion yuan for fraud.
- Hengda Real Estate Group fined 7 billion yuan for fraud.
- Hui Ka Yan convicted of fraud, illegal fundraising, and bribery between 2016 and 2021.
Hui Ka Yan, the founder of China Evergrande Group, has been sentenced to life in prison by a Shenzhen court for crimes including fraud, illegal fundraising, and bribery committed between 2016 and 2021. The court also ordered the confiscation of all his personal property and fined him 47 million yuan, barring him from the securities market for life. The sentencing marks a dramatic downfall for the former tycoon, once named by Forbes as China's richest man with a net worth of $42.5 billion in 2017.
Evergrande, once the country's top-selling developer, became embroiled in a severe financial crisis that became public in 2021. The company has defaulted on most of its $300 billion in liabilities and was delisted from the Hong Kong stock exchange. In addition to Hui Ka Yan's sentence, Evergrande Group was fined 8.8 billion yuan ($1.31 billion) for fraudulent bond issuance and illegal information disclosure. Its main subsidiary, Hengda Real Estate Group, received a fine of 7 billion yuan ($1.04 billion).
More than 50 individuals linked to Evergrande were also sentenced, with prison terms ranging from 20 months to 18 years. Evergrande's troubles began in 2020 when the Chinese government introduced regulations limiting the amount of debt that property companies could hold, a move that significantly impacted the debt-fuelled real estate sector, which traditionally accounts for between one-quarter and one-third of China's GDP. The company's implosion has been seen as a symbol for the wider troubles in the property sector, which continues to weigh heavily on the Chinese economy.