Who is Hui Ka Yan, the rags-to-once Asia’s richest man, who has been sentenced to life in prison?

China Evergrande Group founder Hui Ka Yan has been sentenced to life in prison by a court in Shenzhen, five years after the collapse of the world’s most-indebted property developer shook China’s economy and financial markets.

The court also ordered the confiscation of all of Hui’s personal property. The 67-year-old, who had not been seen in public since Chinese authorities detained him in 2023 following Evergrande’s default, pleaded guilty in April to eight charges, including misuse of funds, fundraising fraud, illegally taking public deposits, illegally extending loans, fraudulently issuing securities and bribery.

Hui’s conviction closes a dramatic rags-to-riches story that saw him become one of China’s most prominent businessmen and, briefly, Asia’s richest man.

MUST READ | China’s Brahmaputra mega-dam sparks seismic fears: Why should India be worried

From rural Henan to Asia’s richest man

Hui was raised by his grandmother in a rural village in China’s central Henan province and worked as a steel technician before building his fortune through Evergrande and its low-priced housing model.

Under Hui, Evergrande expanded aggressively, borrowing heavily to fund land purchases while selling homes at lower margins to generate rapid turnover. The strategy transformed the company into China’s premier property developer, with annual sales reaching 700 billion yuan ($100 billion) by 2020.

His wealth peaked at an estimated $45.3 billion in 2017, making him Asia’s richest person at the time, according to Forbes. By 2023, his estimated fortune had fallen to about $3 billion.

DON'T MISS | China moves to replace Microsoft Windows from state agencies to cut US tech dependency

A workaholic with a low public profile, Hui was known for setting ambitious targets and, according to three former employees cited by Reuters, sometimes expected others to follow his demanding work style.

At Evergrande’s peak, he also ventured beyond property, including into electric vehicles and football, areas linked to broader ambitions in China.

Hui also developed ties with Hong Kong’s business elite, becoming part of a close-knit group known as the “poker club”, whose members often invested together. New World Development founder Cheng Yu Tung invested $150 million in Evergrande a year before its 2009 Hong Kong initial public offering.

From property giant to collapse

Evergrande eventually defaulted on most of its $300 billion in liabilities, becoming a symbol of the property crisis that has continued to weigh on China’s economy.

MUST READ | Can’t have both: Washington to ask countries to choose between US or China in the AI race

A Hong Kong court ordered the company’s liquidation in 2024, while the Hong Kong Stock Exchange delisted it last year.

The liquidation has moved slowly. As of last August, only about $255 million of assets had been sold, compared with creditor claims of $45 billion.

Liquidators are also pursuing Hui and his former spouse over offshore assets in an effort to recover $6 billion in dividends and remuneration paid to the founder and other former executives.

Hui had already been fined $6.6 million by China’s securities regulator in 2024 and barred for life from the securities market after Evergrande’s flagship unit was found to have inflated earnings and committed securities fraud.

Despite the collapse, Hui had long credited China’s economic reforms for his rise. In 2018, he said Evergrande’s success and everything he had were ultimately made possible by the country, the Communist Party and society.

DON'T MISS | China completes giant 582-tonne magnet for ‘artificial sun’, Targets fusion energy by 2030