China Evergrande founder, once Asia's richest man, sentenced to life in prison

China Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan, who once ranked as Asia's richest man, has been sentenced to life in prison by a Chinese court, bringing an end to the rise and fall of the businessman behind one of the biggest corporate failures in history. The 67-year-old was sentenced in the southern city of Shenzhen on Thursday, five years after Evergrande's debt crisis shook China's property market and financial system.

Hui pleaded guilty in April to eight charges, including misuse of funds, fundraising fraud, illegally taking public deposits, illegally extending loans, fraudulently issuing securities and bribery.

The court also ordered the confiscation of all of his personal property. Evergrande was fined 8.82 billion yuan ($1.31 billion), while its main subsidiary Hengda Real Estate was fined 7 billion yuan. The verdict marks the latest chapter in the spectacular collapse of Evergrande, once China's biggest property developer by contracted sales and a symbol of the country's debt-fuelled real estate boom.

WHO IS HUI KA YAN?

Hui's story had once been held up as an example of extraordinary entrepreneurial success in modern China. Raised by his grandmother in a rural village in central Henan province, Hui started his career as a steel technician before founding Evergrande in 1996.

Over the following two decades, he transformed the company into a property powerhouse by borrowing aggressively and expanding rapidly across China. His wealth peaked in 2017, when Forbes estimated his net worth at $45.3 billion, making him the richest person in Asia at the time.

But the debt-heavy expansion eventually became unsustainable.

Evergrande accumulated liabilities estimated at around $300 billion, making it the world's most-indebted property developer. Its default became one of the clearest signs of the deep problems facing China's property market, which has struggled for years and continued to weigh on the world's second-largest economy. The company ultimately defaulted on most of its liabilities, leaving homeowners, investors and creditors facing huge losses.

'WHAT ABOUT OUR MONEY?'

The court's decision is unlikely to resolve the financial uncertainty surrounding Evergrande or provide immediate relief to the company's creditors.

Evergrande's liquidators haven't commented on Hui's sentence. Hui had not been seen in public since Chinese authorities detained him in 2023 after the developer's default. Images released by the court showed a grey-haired Hui standing between two officers. He was wearing a long-sleeved navy blue collared shirt as the court read out his sentence.

The court said the offences committed by Evergrande, Hengda and Hui involved exceptionally large sums and had caused severe economic and social harm.

"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," the court said in a statement, as per news agency Reuters.

The verdict has also drawn anger from Evergrande homeowners and investors who say they have been left to bear the consequences of the company's collapse. Comments in an Evergrande homeowners' social media group included: "All ordinary citizens have paid the cost," "Imprisonment is meant to protect him. If he comes out, his life is in jeopardy" and "What about our money?"

DOZENS OF EXECUTIVES ALSO SENTENCED

Hui was not the only Evergrande executive punished by the court. Five other senior executives were handed prison sentences ranging from six to 18 years, along with fines. State broadcaster CCTV reported that 56 people linked to Evergrande, apart from Hui, received sentences on Thursday.

The case also lays bare the enormous scale of the problems left behind by Evergrande's collapse. While Hui faces life in prison, creditors are still trying to recover billions of dollars from the failed property empire.

REGULATORS HAD ALREADY BANNED HUI FOR LIFE

Hui's troubles are not limited to a criminal conviction. In 2024, China's securities regulator fined him 47 million yuan ($6.6 million) and imposed a lifetime ban from the securities market after finding that Evergrande's flagship mainland unit had inflated its earnings and committed securities fraud.

The company's collapse has been followed by a prolonged liquidation process. A Hong Kong court ordered Evergrande to be liquidated in 2024 after the developer failed to present a viable restructuring plan. The company was later delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, ending its turbulent run as one of China's most prominent listed property firms.

But recovering money for creditors has proved difficult.

Evergrande's liquidators have described the process as painfully slow. By last August, only about $255 million worth of assets had reportedly been sold, against creditor claims of roughly $45 billion.

The liquidators are also pursuing Hui's offshore assets. Outside mainland China, they have been fighting legal battles to freeze assets belonging to Hui and his former spouse as they seek to recover about $6 billion in dividends and remuneration paid to the founder and other former executives.

- Ends

With inouts from Reuters