Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan gets life sentence over property giant's collapse
Hui Ka Yan, the founder of China's Evergrande Group, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Shenzhen. The verdict, delivered on Friday, also ordered the confiscation of all his personal property, marking a significant development in the fallout from the company's historic collapse.
The Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court found Hui guilty of charges including embezzlement of assets and corporate bribery. He had pleaded guilty to these charges in April. In addition to Hui's sentence, the court imposed a fine of 8.82 billion yuan (about $1.31 billion) on Evergrande Group, while its real estate unit was ordered to pay a separate fine of 7 billion yuan, according to state media reports.
Evergrande was once China's largest property developer, with a stock market valuation exceeding $50 billion. Hui, who was raised in rural China by his grandmother, founded the company in 1996. Under his leadership, Evergrande expanded aggressively, relying heavily on borrowed money to finance its growth. At its peak, Hui was estimated to be Asia's richest person.
The company's fortunes reversed after Beijing introduced measures in 2020 to control debt in the property sector. Evergrande's financial troubles became public in 2021, when it began selling properties at steep discounts to stay afloat. The company ultimately collapsed, leaving behind hundreds of unfinished property projects and billions of dollars in debt.
During the court proceedings, it was revealed that Evergrande had diverted millions of dollars in pre-sale funds from homebuyers to fund new developments, rather than using the money to complete promised construction. This mismanagement left many buyers without homes and contributed to widespread discontent.
In March 2024, Hui was fined $6.5 million and banned from China's capital markets for life after regulators found that Evergrande had overstated its revenue by $78 billion. The company's shares were removed from the Hong Kong stock exchange in August 2025, after losing more than 99% of their value.
Evergrande's implosion is widely seen as a key trigger for the broader slump in China's property market, which has weighed heavily on the country's economic growth. The case highlights the risks of excessive corporate debt and the challenges facing regulators in managing large-scale financial failures.
