By Hui Ka Yan, founder of collapsed Chinese property developer Evergrande, was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to embezzlement, bribery and other charges, state media reported.
The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court also confiscated Hui’s personal property and fined his former companies a combined 15.82 billion yuan (about $2.35 billion), the state-run Xinhua News Agency said.
Hui, 67, pleaded guilty in April to several charges, including embezzlement of company assets and corporate bribery, following an investigation into the financial collapse of what was once China’s largest real estate developer.
The court found that Hui and his businesses “seriously disrupted” China’s property market, resulting in significant economic losses. The ruling marks one of the most severe penalties handed down against a Chinese business figure in recent years.
Other former Evergrande executives were also sentenced. Hui’s two sons, Xu Zhijian and Xu Tenghe, received jail terms ranging from 22 months to 18 years.
Hui, also known as Xu Jiayin, founded Evergrande in 1996 after growing up in rural China, where he was raised by his grandmother before entering the property development business.
He built the company into China’s biggest real estate developer through rapid, debt-fuelled expansion, at one point pushing its stock market valuation above $50 billion. Hui was ranked Asia’s richest person during the company’s peak, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index at the time.
The company’s fortunes turned in 2020 when Chinese regulators introduced measures to curb excessive borrowing in the property sector, known as the “three red lines” policy. Unable to meet interest payments on its debts, Evergrande began selling properties at steep discounts before defaulting and collapsing in 2021.
Court proceedings in April found that Evergrande had taken in millions of dollars in pre-sale funds from prospective homebuyers that were never used for the construction projects they were intended for.
Instead, prosecutors said, the funds were diverted to new developments, leaving hundreds of housing projects unfinished across China.
In March 2024, Chinese regulators fined Hui $6.5 million and banned him for life from the country’s capital markets after finding Evergrande had overstated its revenue by $78 billion in the years before its collapse.
Evergrande’s shares, once among the most heavily traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, lost 99% of their value before being delisted in August 2025 after more than 15 years of trading, according to exchange filings.
Evergrande’s implosion is widely regarded as a trigger for the broader downturn in China’s property market, which continues to weigh on the world’s second-largest economy.
At its height, the real estate sector accounted for roughly a third of China’s gross domestic product and was a key source of revenue for local governments through land sales.
The sector’s prolonged troubles have since spread to other major developers, including Country Garden and Sunac China Holdings, both of which have faced debt restructuring in recent years.
Economists have pointed to the property slump as a drag on Chinese consumer confidence and local government finances, with knock-on effects for construction, banking and household wealth, given that real estate has traditionally been the primary store of savings for Chinese families.
Beijing has introduced a series of support measures since 2022 aimed at stabilizing the sector, including funding for unfinished housing projects and looser mortgage rules, though analysts say a full recovery remains elusive.
The company remains in liquidation proceedings overseen by a Hong Kong court, with creditors, including international bondholders, still seeking to recover a fraction of the billions they are owed.
