Hui Ka Yan, founder of China Evergrande Group, was sentenced to life in prison and had all his personal property confiscated in a Shenzhen court on August 20, 2026 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. Hui, 67, pleaded guilty in April 2026 to charges including misuse of funds, fundraising fraud, illegal public deposits, unlawful loans, fraudulent securities issuance, corporate bribery, and embezzlement [1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10].
China Evergrande Group was fined 8.82 billion yuan (approximately US$1.31 billion), while its main real estate unit, Hengda Real Estate, was fined 7 billion yuan. The total fines amounted to about 15.82 billion yuan or US$2.4 billion [1, 3, 5, 7, 10].
The court also sentenced 56 other individuals connected to Evergrande, including Hui’s sons Xu Zhijian and Xu Tenghe, with prison terms ranging from about 20 months to 18 years [3, 5, 7, 10]. The court described Hui’s financial crimes as causing "exceptionally heavy economic losses" and "extremely grave social harm," noting the crimes involved "particularly huge amounts and egregious circumstances" [3, 5, 7, 10].
Hui, also known as Xu Jiayin, founded China Evergrande Group in 1996. The company, once one of Asia’s largest property developers, was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2009 before facing a liquidity crisis triggered by Beijing’s 2020 debt restrictions on developers [1, 11, 12, 7]. Evergrande defaulted in 2021 on about US$300 billion in liabilities, one of the largest corporate defaults ever recorded [7, 10]. The company was ordered liquidated by a Hong Kong court in 2024 and subsequently delisted from the stock exchange in August 2025 after 16 years of trading [1, 3, 7, 10].
Born in Henan province in 1958, Hui rose from poverty to become one of Asia’s richest men before Evergrande’s collapse [1, 5, 6, 7]. The sentencing marks the conclusion of a high-profile legal crackdown related to Evergrande’s dramatic fall.
The Shenzhen court’s ruling closes the criminal case against Hui and associated defendants, finalizing penalties rooted in the sprawling financial scandal. The company fines and prison terms were handed down today, concluding proceedings that began with Hui’s guilty plea earlier this year [1, 3, 5, 7, 10].
