China’s Evergrande Founder Sentenced to Life
It came five years after the firm’s collapse shook the nation’s economy
Synopsis
Hui Ka Yan, the billionaire founder of the world’s most-indebted property developer, faced a life sentence in jail due to financial fraud and the misuse of funds. Hui Ka Yan’s sons and 56 others tied to the company were also sentenced to various terms, and he was ordered to surrender all his personal assets.
AdvertisementFrom Rags to Riches and Then Back Again
Hui Ka Yan was formerly a steel technician whom his grandmother raised in a rural village in central Henan province. In 1996, Hui founded Evergrande, which later went on to become China’s biggest property developer by contracted sales, taking on debts. This later made Hui have a net worth of $45.3 billion in 2017, making it the highest in Asia.
In 2024, a Hong Kong court ordered Evergrande liquidated, followed by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange delisting it in 2025, marking the end of the empire.
AdvertisementAccording to its liquidators, the liquidation process has moved at a very slow pace, with only about $255 million worth of assets sold as of August 2025, compared to the creditors' claims of a total of $45 billion.
In a struggle to get back $6 billion in dividends and remuneration paid to the founder and other former executives, the liquidators outside mainland China are fighting in court to freeze the offshore assets of Hui and his former spouse.
After finding out that Evergrande's flagship unit had inflated earnings and committed securities fraud, China's securities regulator in 2024 barred Hui from the securities market for life, besides fining him a huge sum of $6.6 million.
The Current Scenario
In April 2026, Hui Ka Yan pleaded guilty to multiple charges, which also include misuse of funds, fundraising fraud, illegally taking public deposits, illegally extending loans, fraudulently issuing securities, and bribery.
AdvertisementEvergrande, which was once deemed China's premier developer, has defaulted on most of its $300 billion in liabilities, its troubles symbolising a noticeable crisis in the property sector.
Creditors in Crisis
The Evergrande homeowners have found themselves in the middle of a crisis as they took to social media and said, "All ordinary citizens have paid the cost," "Imprisonment is meant to protect him. If he comes out, his life is in jeopardy" and asked, "What about our money?”
Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court also fined his former companies a total of 15.82bn yuan (£1.73bn; $2.35bn) over multiple crimes, including falsifying records and concealing debt.
On Thursday, August 20, 2026, 56 people other than Hui who are linked to Evergrande have received their sentences.
The company's failure to repay billions of dollars in wealth-management products has triggered protests that threatened social stability after lower-income ordinary investors saw their assets being wiped out.
The court stated, “The criminal acts of Evergrande Group, Hengda Real Estate, and Hui Ka Yan ... involved particularly huge amounts and egregious circumstances, caused particularly significant economic losses and caused particularly serious social harm, and should be severely punished according to law.”
