Founder of collapsed Chinese property giant Evergrande sentenced to life in prison

The founder of Evergrande, the property giant at the centre of China’s housing market slump, has been sentenced to life in prison and had all of his personal property confiscated.

Hui Ka Yan pleaded guilty in April to several charges, including embezzlement of assets and corporate bribery.

Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court also fined Evergrande Group 8.82bn yuan (£960m; $1.31bn), while its real estate unit was ordered to pay 7bn yuan, according to state media.

Hui’s sentencing marks a key moment in the fallout from Evergrande’s collapse, which shook China’s property sector and hit investors and domestic banks hard.

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 setting up Evergrande in 1996.

He oversaw the company’s rapid rise through an aggressive expansion programme funded with large amounts of borrowed money.

Evergrande became China’s biggest real estate developer, with a stock market valuation of more than $50bn (£36.7bn). Hui was once estimated to be Asia’s richest person.

The firm was dealt a huge blow when Beijing introduced measures in 2020 to control debt in the country’s property sector.

That led it to sell properties at huge discounts to stay afloat before collapsing in 2021.

The court heard in April that the company had taken millions of dollars in pre-sale funding from potential house buyers that were not used for construction.

The money had instead been channelled to new property developments, resulting in hundreds of unfinished projects.

Evergrande’s stock market valuation shrank by 99% before its shares were removed from the Hong Kong exchange in August 2025 after more than a decade and a half of trading.

Evergrande’s implosion has often been blamed for triggering a broader slump in China’s property market that continues to weigh heavily on the economy.