China real estate giant Xu Jiayin sentenced to life in prison

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. Evergrande Group was once the face of Chinese real estate, surfing a decades-long property boom as it peddled home-ownership dreams. But its access to credit dramatically narrowed when the government introduced curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation. The company defaulted in 2021 after struggling to repay creditors. Read moreEvergrande’s collapse would have ‘profound consequences’ for China’s economy 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). It issued a life sentence against founder Xu Jiayin, also known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, for crimes including "large-scale financial fraud", the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court in Guangdong province said 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 said. Between 2016 and 2021, Evergrande and ...