The Sentence
Hui pleaded guilty in April to several charges, including embezzlement of assets and corporate bribery. The court found his companies guilty of multiple crimes beyond that, including falsifying records and concealing debt.
The judgment was blunt: Hui and his businesses "seriously disrupted" the Chinese property market, resulting in significant economic losses, the court said.
The punishment swept up the family and the boardroom. Hui's sons Xu Zhijian and Xu Tenghe were among the Evergrande executives sentenced to jail terms ranging from 22 months to 18 years, according to state media.
From His Grandmother's House to a $50 Billion Empire
Hui's story was, for decades, the archetypal Chinese success tale. Also known as Xu Jiayin, he rose from humble beginnings in rural China, raised by his grandmother, before venturing into property development and founding Evergrande in 1996.
His formula was aggressive expansion funded with enormous amounts of borrowed money. It worked spectacularly, until it did not. Evergrande became China's biggest real estate developer, with a stock market valuation of more than $50 billion, and Hui topped the rankings as Asia's richest man.
The House of Cards Comes Down
Beijing pulled the first thread in 2020, introducing measures to control debt across the property sector. For a company built on leverage, it was a death sentence in slow motion.
Struggling to meet interest payments, Evergrande sold properties at huge discounts to stay afloat before collapsing in 2021. The wreckage kept surfacing for years. In April, the court heard the company had taken millions of dollars in pre-sale funding from potential home buyers that was never used for construction. The money was channeled into new developments instead, leaving hundreds of unfinished projects and families paying for homes that do not exist.
The paper trail was just as damning. In March 2024, Hui was fined $6.5 million and banned from China's capital market for life after his company overstated its revenue by $78 billion. Evergrande's stock market valuation shrank by 99% before its shares were removed from the Hong Kong exchange in August 2025, ending more than a decade and a half of trading.
The Crater It Left in China's Economy
Evergrande's implosion is widely blamed for triggering the broader slump in China's property market that still weighs on the economy today.
The scale explains why. At its height, Evergrande was the biggest firm in an industry that made up about a third of China's gross domestic product. Property was a significant driver of growth and a critical revenue source for local governments. When Evergrande fell, it dragged confidence in the entire sector down with it, and several other major developers have since faced financial troubles of their own, pressing on the world's second largest economy.
What Comes Next
The sentencing closes the legal chapter on Evergrande's founder, but not on the crisis he leaves behind. Hundreds of unfinished projects still dot Chinese cities, home buyers are still waiting, and the property slump still drags on growth. Beijing has made an example of Hui Ka Yan. Whether that restores faith in the market that made and destroyed him is another question entirely.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What sentence did Hui Ka Yan receive?
- Life in prison, with all of his personal property confiscated. His former companies were fined 15.82 billion yuan, about $2.35 billion.
- What crimes did he commit?
- He pleaded guilty to charges including embezzlement of assets and corporate bribery. His companies were also found guilty of falsifying records and concealing debt.
- Were other executives punished?
- Yes. Executives including his sons Xu Zhijian and Xu Tenghe received jail terms ranging from 22 months to 18 years, according to state media.
- Why did Evergrande collapse?
- Its debt-fueled expansion ran into Beijing's 2020 borrowing controls. Unable to meet interest payments, it sold properties at steep discounts before collapsing in 2021.
- How did the collapse affect China's economy?
- It is widely blamed for triggering the ongoing property market slump. Real estate made up about a third of China's GDP at Evergrande's peak.
