Evergrande’s Xu Jiayin: From real estate tycoon to life in prison

Some speculated that his success came from useful close relationships, including one with the brother of former Premier Wen Jiabao.(AFP) — Once China’s richest man, disgraced property tycoon Xu Jiayin looked worn Thursday as a Chinese court sentenced the now-white-haired Evergrande founder to life in prison.The 67-year-old, known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, was convicted of crimes including fraud, bribery and embezzlement related to his leadership of Evergrande Group, the country’s biggest real estate conglomerate before it defaulted in 2021.Xu’s rags-to-riches ascent mirrored China’s economic rise.His fall comes as China continues to struggle with a housing slump triggered by Evergrande’s collapse.Rural rootsXu was born into a poor family in rural Henan province in 1958, the year Chinese leader Mao Zedong launched his “Great Leap Forward,” an industrialization campaign that led to mass starvation.Xu, whose mother died when he was 1, recalled in a speech that he ate only sweet potatoes and steamed bread during his school years.“The sheets I laid, the quilts I covered, and the clothes I wore were all covered with piles of patches,” Xu said.“At that time, my greatest wish was to go out of the countryside, find a job and be able to eat better food.”After leaving school in 1976, at the end of the decade-long Cultural Revolution, he struggled to find work.Glamorous riseAs colleges reopened, Xu studied metallurgy and was later assigned to a state-run steel factory.He left in 1992 for Shenzhen, the bustling heart of China’s reform and opening-up experiment in the 1990s.He eventually began working in real estate and founded Evergrande in 1996. The company embarked on mass development, building in-demand apartments across China and capitalizing on the country’s rapid accumulation of wealth.The group listed in Hong Kong in 2009, raising $729 million in its initial public offering and making it China’s largest private real estate company at the time. Xu became the mainland’s richest man.Football and fashionIn 2010, Xu bought the struggling Guangzhou football team, renamed it Guangzhou Evergrande and poured money into world-class players and coaches.A football novice when he bought the club, Xu helped the team win multiple league championships.He also became known for his love of luxury labels, particularly French brand Hermès, earning him the nickname “Belt Xu” after he was spotted wearing a Hermès belt to the national political congress.Some speculated that his success came from useful close relationships, including one with the brother of former Premier Wen Jiabao.But Xu attributed his success to education and the Communist Party.“Everything of Evergrande is given by the Party, the state and the society,” he said.Over the years, however, Xu’s taste for yachts and luxury clashed with President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on extreme wealth as Beijing tightened scrutiny of corruption in the financial sector.Property bustThe tide turned in 2020, when Beijing introduced regulations aimed at limiting excessive borrowing in the real estate sector, complicating Evergrande’s ability to make payments.The company began to falter under the new “three red lines,” caps on three debt ratios that forced the group to sell properties at increasingly steep discounts.Evergrande struggled to appease angry homebuyers and investors as the company’s crisis triggered rare protests outside its offices in China.Seeking to reassure employees in September 2021, Xu told staff in a letter that he believed the group would “step out of the darkest moment soon.”A month later, Chinese authorities reportedly told Xu to use his personal wealth to help alleviate his company’s debt crisis.That December, Fitch Ratings declared the company in default.DownfallTwo years later, media outlets reported that Xu was being held by police.The next day, Evergrande said in a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that Xu was suspected of “illegal crimes,” without providing details.There were no reports of Xu being seen in public for nearly three years, including when Evergrande was delisted from the stock exchange in 2025.By 2023, Xu’s wealth was estimated at $1.8 billion, down from $42 billion in 2017, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.In April 2026, a court in Shenzhen said Xu had pleaded guilty and “expressed remorse” for crimes including fraud, embezzlement and bribery.On Thursday, the court sentenced him to life in prison and fined Evergrande Group and an affiliate more than $2 billion.This time, the court did not say whether Xu spoke.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads