There was a time when Hui Ka Yan seemed to have mastered the art of building wealth.
From a childhood marked by poverty in rural China to becoming one of Asia’s richest men, Hui built China Evergrande into a property empire worth billions of dollars.
Luxury homes. Glittering skyscrapers. Football clubs. Private wealth. Political influence.
For years, Evergrande appeared too big to fail.
Now, its founder has been sentenced to life in prison.
In a dramatic conclusion to one of the biggest corporate collapses in modern Chinese history, a court in Shenzhen sentenced Hui Ka Yan, also known as Xu Jiayin, to life imprisonment and ordered the confiscation of all his personal property.
The punishment marks a devastating fall for the man who once sat at the very top of China’s property boom — and whose company would later become one of the biggest symbols of the country’s economic crisis.
The Empire That Swallowed Itself
Hui founded Evergrande in 1996 and built the company through an aggressive expansion strategy fuelled by massive borrowing.
The formula worked spectacularly — until it didn’t.
Evergrande grew into China’s largest property developer, with a market valuation that once exceeded $50 billion. Hui himself became one of the wealthiest men in Asia.
But beneath the glittering surface of the property empire was a dangerous mountain of debt.
The company borrowed heavily to finance new developments, sold apartments before they were completed and continued expanding at a breathtaking pace.
For a while, the money kept flowing.
Then Beijing changed the rules.
In 2020, Chinese authorities introduced new measures aimed at controlling the enormous debt levels within the country’s overheated property sector.
Evergrande suddenly found itself trapped.
The company struggled to repay its debts and began selling properties at steep discounts in a desperate attempt to stay afloat.
By 2021, the empire was collapsing.
Buyers Paid — But Many Homes Were Never Completed
One of the most damaging revelations to emerge from the case centred on money collected from ordinary Chinese citizens hoping to buy homes.
The court heard that Evergrande received millions of dollars in pre-sale funds from prospective homebuyers.
But instead of using all the money to complete the homes people had paid for, funds were allegedly redirected into new property developments.
The result was devastating.
Hundreds of projects were left unfinished, leaving buyers who had spent their savings and taken out mortgages waiting for homes that never came.
For many, the Evergrande crisis was not simply a corporate scandal playing out on stock market screens.
It was personal.
It was a family waiting for the keys to a home.
A mortgage being paid for an apartment that remained unfinished.
A life plan suddenly trapped inside a concrete shell.
Court Says Evergrande Caused Major Economic Losses
Hui pleaded guilty in April to several offences, including embezzlement of assets and corporate bribery.
The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court said Hui and his companies had seriously disrupted China’s property market and caused significant economic losses.
His former companies were also fined a combined 15.82 billion yuan, while several other executives connected to Evergrande received prison sentences.
Among them were Hui’s two sons, Xu Zhijian and Xu Tenghe, who were sentenced to jail terms ranging from 22 months to 18 years, according to state media.
The message from the Chinese authorities appears unmistakable: the collapse of Evergrande would not end with the destruction of a company alone.
Those at the centre of it would also face consequences.
From Penthouse Wealth To Prison
Hui’s downfall had been unfolding for years.
In March 2024, he was fined $6.5 million and banned from China’s capital markets for life after authorities found that Evergrande had overstated its revenue by approximately $78 billion.
The company’s value collapsed almost completely.
Its market valuation plunged by about 99%, before Evergrande’s shares were eventually removed from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in August 2025.
The company that once represented the unstoppable ambition of China’s property boom had become one of its most spectacular ruins.
And Hui, the man who built it, had gone from being Asia’s richest man to losing his freedom and personal property.
Evergrande’s Collapse Changed More Than One Company
The destruction of Evergrande sent shockwaves far beyond its boardroom.
The company’s collapse became a symbol of the deeper problems facing China’s once-booming property sector.
Real estate had long been one of the engines powering the world’s second-largest economy, contributing significantly to growth and providing crucial revenue for local governments.
At its peak, the property industry accounted for roughly a third of China’s economic activity.
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But as Evergrande fell, other major developers also began struggling under enormous debt burdens.
The crisis exposed the risks behind years of rapid expansion, aggressive borrowing and a property market built on the assumption that prices and demand would continue rising forever.
They didn’t.
And when the system began to crack, even the biggest names were not spared.
A Warning Written In Concrete
Hui Ka Yan’s story is one of extraordinary ambition — and an equally extraordinary collapse.
A boy raised by his grandmother in rural China built one of the world’s largest property empires.
That empire helped transform him into a billionaire.
But the debt, alleged financial misconduct and corporate excess that accompanied its expansion eventually brought the entire structure crashing down.
Today, many of Evergrande’s unfinished buildings remain a physical reminder of what happens when ambition grows faster than accountability.
Hui once built an empire that appeared to touch the sky.
Now, with a life sentence and his personal assets confiscated, the man who once stood at the summit of China’s property boom has become one of the clearest symbols of its collapse.