Evergrande founder guilty

Hui Ka-yan, the founder of China Evergrande, pleaded guilty in Shenzhen to fraud-related charges after nearly three years in detention. (scmp.com) A court statement said Hui, 67, admitted charges that included fundraising fraud, illegally taking public deposits, misuse of funds and corporate bribery during a two-day trial held on April 13 and April 14. The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court said it will announce a verdict later. (apnews.com) Hui, also known as Xu Jiayin, was first detained in September 2023 on suspicion of crimes, and he has not been seen in public since then. Reuters and other outlets said he expressed remorse in court. (abcnews.com) The plea lands in the middle of Evergrande’s court-run breakup, not at the start of it. Hong Kong’s High Court ordered the developer wound up on January 29, 2024, and appointed Alvarez and Marsal partners Edward Middleton and Tiffany Wong as liquidators. (hkexnews.hk) That liquidation followed years of financial unraveling. Evergrande defaulted in 2021 and its collapse left more than $300 billion in liabilities, turning the company into the clearest symbol of China’s property slump. (cnbc.com) The criminal case and the liquidation are running on separate tracks. In Hong Kong and other offshore courts, liquidators are still trying to recover about $6 billion in dividends and remuneration paid to Hui and other former executives before the collapse. (abc.net.au) Those efforts include attempts to freeze assets linked to Hui and his former spouse and to identify property he allegedly failed to disclose. Reuters reported last year that receivers were being sought to trace and preserve assets tied to the founder. (marketscreener.com) Analysts do not expect Tuesday’s guilty plea to move markets much because Evergrande’s collapse, default and liquidation have already been absorbed by investors over several years. The bigger unanswered question is how much money liquidators can still claw back for creditors. (scmp.com)