Hui Ka Yan, the founder of the Chinese real estate conglomerate Evergrande, has been sentenced to life in prison following his conviction for large-scale financial fraud. A court in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen announced the ruling on Thursday, marking a significant development in the collapse of the developer, which once stood as the world's most heavily indebted real estate firm.
In addition to the life sentence for Hui—who is also known as Xu Jiayin—the court imposed heavy financial penalties on the organization. The Evergrande group was fined 8.82 billion yuan ($1.31 billion), while the Evergrande Real Estate Group received a separate fine of 7 billion yuan ($1.04 billion). Beyond the founder, several other senior executives at the company were handed prison sentences of up to 18 years for offenses including fraud and the illegal solicitation of public deposits.
The Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court stated that Hui abused his professional position to misappropriate company assets and orchestrate financial fraud. Investigators found that the company had systematically manipulated its financial data, including the practice of prematurely booking revenue from property sales before the actual completion and delivery of units to buyers. Authorities reported that these tactics allowed the company to overstate its revenue by approximately $80 billion across 2019 and 2020.
Hui, who founded the company in 1996, had previously entered a guilty plea in April to charges involving bribery, fraud, and the illegal absorption of public deposits. The company defaulted on its debt obligations in 2021, a crisis that was exacerbated by a 2020 government crackdown on excessive borrowing within the real estate sector. This collapse triggered a wider downturn in the Chinese property market, which has continued to exert pressure on the nation's broader economy. Following its default, Evergrande was ordered to liquidate its assets.
A worker collects trash in a partially shuttered Evergrande commercial complex, on the day Hong Kong Stock Exchange delisted the Chinese property developer China Evergrande, in Beijing, China, Aug. 25, 2025. Mahesh Kumar A./AP hide caption
Authorities in Hong Kong and mainland China earlier said their investigations found Evergrande had manipulated its financial data by tactics that included prematurely booking revenue from property sales before completion and delivery of the apartments to buyers. Revenues were overstated by roughly $80 billion over 2019 and 2020, they said.
