Xu Jiayin on Bankruptcy and Restructuring

Xu Jiayin's China Evergrande a court accepted a liquidation against Evergrande's property development unit a day after 67-year-old founder Hui Kan Yan was sentenced to .

Evergrande defaulted in 2021, failed to repay billions of dollars in wealth-management products, and was delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on August 25, 2025, per AP's photo caption reporting.

Evergrande defaulted in 2021 on roughly $300 billion in liabilities after government curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation narrowed its access to credit, an event the Guardian describes as emblematic of broader distress in China's property sector.

Chinese authorities detained Xu in 2023 following the default; he was not seen in public again until his April 2026 trial, according to the Guardian.

On August 20, 2026, the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court sentenced Xu to life imprisonment, revoked his political rights for life, and ordered confiscation of all his personal property; the court and Evergrande's real estate arm were separately fined a combined 15.82 billion yuan (approximately US$2.4 billion). The court stated that between 2016 and 2021, Evergrande and Xu engaged in 'continuous, large-scale financial fraud' to inflate assets and conceal liabilities, and that parties involved 'gained control of financial institutions' through bribery, without naming the institutions.