News: Evergrande Founder Hui Ka Yan Jailed for Life-20-08-2026
A Shenzhen court gave Hui Ka Yan, founder of China Evergrande Group, a life sentence on Thursday, Reuters reported on Aug 20, five years after the world’s most-indebted developer collapsed and rattled China’s economy and financial markets. Once Asia’s richest man, he had admitted in April to eight charges, including misuse of funds, fundraising fraud, illegally taking public deposits, illegally extending loans, fraudulently issuing securities and bribery. All his personal property will be confiscated.
The court fined Evergrande 8.82 billion yuan ($1.31 billion) and its main subsidiary Hengda 7 billion yuan, and gave five other senior executives fines and prison terms of six to 18 years. State media CCTV reported 56 other people tied to Evergrande were sentenced too. The court described the conduct of Evergrande, Hengda Real Estate and Hui as involving "particularly huge amounts" and "egregious circumstances", warranting harsh punishment under the law.
Court photos showed Hui, 67, grey-haired in a navy blue collared shirt between two officers; he had not appeared publicly since his 2023 detention after the default. Evergrande’s liquidators declined comment and Reuters could not reach his legal representatives.
Creditors at home and abroad will find little comfort. Evergrande defaulted on most of $300 billion in liabilities, symbolising the property crisis weighing on the world’s second-biggest economy. Unpaid wealth-management products sparked protests threatening social stability as many lower-income investors lost holdings. Evergrande homeowners commenting in an online group said ordinary citizens bore the cost, and asked "What about our money?"
Raised by his grandmother in rural Henan province, Hui, a former steel technician, founded Evergrande in 1996 and, borrowing heavily, made it China’s biggest developer by contracted sales; Forbes put his 2017 net worth at $45.3 billion, Asia’s highest. A Hong Kong court ordered liquidation in 2024 and the exchange delisted it last year. Progress is slow: about $255 million of assets sold as of last August against $45 billion in creditor claims. Outside the mainland, liquidators are in court to freeze offshore assets of Hui and his former spouse and recover $6 billion in dividends and remuneration paid to him and other ex-executives. In 2024 China’s securities regulator fined Hui $6.6 million and banned him from the market for life over inflated earnings and securities fraud at the flagship unit. ($1 = 6.7231 Chinese yuan renminbi)
