China jails founder, fines disgraced property giant Evergrande

BEIJING: China sentenced the founder of embattled property giant Evergrande to life in prison and fined the group more than $2 billion on Thursday for offences including fraud, five years after a high-profile default.

Key points

• On Thursday, a court in southern China fined the firm and its real estate arm a total of 15.82 billion yuan ($2.4 billion).
• Five other senior executives of Evergrande Group were additionally sentenced Thursday to prison terms ranging from six to 18 years for crimes including fraud, the Shenzhen court stated.
• Real estate firm Evergrande sells land for USD 1 billion as debt crisis looms throughout China.
• Evergrande Group was once the face of Chinese real estate, surfing a decades-long property boom as it peddled home-ownership dreams.
• Chinese police detain wealth management staff at the heavily indebted developer Evergrande 'Serious social harm'.

But its access to credit dramatically narrowed when the administration introduced curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation. The firm defaulted in 2021 after struggling to repay creditors.

It issued a life sentence against founder Xu Jiayin, additionally known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, for crimes including "large-scale financial fraud", the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court in Guangdong province stated in a post on its WeChat account.

"Xu Jiayin was sentenced for multiple crimes and fined, received a life sentence, with political rights revoked for life and all his personal property confiscated, " it remarked.

Between 2016 and 2021, Evergrande and Xu as its boss "violated national laws by engaging in continuous, large-scale financial fraud and other means to inflate assets and conceal liabilities", the court remarked.

It continued that the parties "gained control of financial institutions" through bribery, without naming the institutions.

Xu pleaded guilty in April to charges that additionally included embezzlement and bribery, the court stated at the time.

Chinese police detain wealth management staff at the heavily indebted developer Evergrande 'Serious social harm'. The verdict caps 67-year-old Xu's spectacular fall from grace.

He was once one of China's richest billionaires and a member of the Communist Party's top political advisory body.

On Thursday, a before-and-after photomontage was being widely shared on social media — the older image, taken years ago, demonstrates Xu beaming as he was chased by reporters, sporting jet black hair and wearing a gold Hermes belt.

It was contrasted with a picture published by the court on Thursday, in which a worn, white-haired Xu stood unsmiling, flanked by two police officers as he faced a panel of judges.

Xu and Evergrande's actions "seriously disrupted the socialist market economic order. And undermined the integrity of official conduct by state personnel", the court remarked.

"The circumstances were particularly egregious, causing particularly serious economic losses and causing particularly serious social harm, " it continued.

As well as relatives of the defendants, attended the verdict, the court remarked some lawmakers and members of the political advisory body.

Observers assessing the health of the world's second-largest economy have been closely after Evergrande's saga and similar matters faced by other property giants including Country Garden and Vanke. New-home rates in China have been contracting for three years.

Notably, a total of 56 individuals were given jail sentences — including Xu's two sons — with the shortest term one year and 10 months, China's state news agency Xinhua noted.

Notably, the court additionally ordered that remaining shortfalls from illegal gains be returned.

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