Life in prison for tycoon behind China’s property collapse

The founder of Evergrande, the property giant whose collapse triggered a slump in China’s housing market, has been sentenced to life in prison with all his personal property confiscated. Hui Ka Yan, who had pleaded guilty in April to charges including embezzlement of assets and corporate bribery, was convicted by the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court, which also fined his former companies a total of 15.82bn yuan (£1.73bn) for multiple crimes, including falsifying records and concealing debt.

The sentencing marks a pivotal moment in the fallout from Evergrande’s implosion, which severely shook China’s property sector and inflicted heavy losses on investors and domestic banks. The court said that Hui and his businesses had “seriously disrupted” the Chinese property market, resulting in significant economic losses. Other Evergrande executives, including Hui’s two sons, Xu Zhijian and Xu Tenghe, were given jail terms ranging from 22 months to 18 years, according to state media.

Hui, also known as Xu Jiayin, rose from humble beginnings in rural China, where he was raised by his grandmother, before venturing into property development and establishing Evergrande in 1996. He oversaw the company’s rapid ascent through an aggressive expansion programme funded by large-scale borrowing. Evergrande became the country’s biggest real estate developer, at one point achieving a stock market valuation exceeding $50bn (£36.7bn), with Hui himself estimated to be Asia’s richest person.

The firm suffered a severe blow when Beijing introduced measures in 2020 to curb debt levels across the property sector. As Evergrande struggled to meet interest payments on its obligations, it sold properties at steep discounts in a bid to stay afloat, before eventually collapsing in 2021. In April, the court heard that the company had diverted millions of dollars in pre-sale funding from prospective homebuyers away from construction, channelling the money instead to new developments and leaving hundreds of projects unfinished. In March 2024, Hui was fined $6.5m and banned from China’s capital markets for life after his company overstated its revenue by $78bn.

Evergrande’s stock market valuation shrank by 99 per cent before its shares were delisted from the Hong Kong exchange in August 2025, after more than 15 years of trading. The company’s implosion has been widely blamed for triggering a broader downturn in China’s property market that continues to weigh heavily on the economy. At its height, Evergrande was the largest firm in a real estate industry that accounted for about a third of China’s gross domestic product, serving as a significant driver of growth and an important revenue source for local governments. The sector’s persistent difficulties have since weighed on the world’s second-largest economy, as several other major developers have also faced financial distress.