The head of the world's most indebted company was sentenced to life in prison

**World's Most Indebted Company CEO Sentenced to Life**

Xu Ka-yan, the founder and chairman of the world's most indebted real estate giant China Evergrande Group, has been sentenced to life in prison, Reuters reported.

The ruling comes five years after the company's collapse rocked China's economy and financial markets. Xu Ka-yan, once Asia's richest man, pleaded guilty in April to eight charges including embezzlement, fraud, illegal collection of deposits, illegal lending, fraudulent issuance of securities and bribery.

Evergrande, a leading Chinese construction company, has defaulted on most of its $300 billion in debt and is unable to repay its debts. The court's ruling also includes the confiscation of all of Xu's personal assets.

Evergrande's liquidators declined to comment on the ruling. Reuters was unable to reach Xu's legal representatives. He has not been seen in public since he was arrested by Chinese authorities in 2023 after Evergrande defaulted.

Photos released by the court showed the 67-year-old, white-haired Xu standing surrounded by two guards, wearing a long, dark blue collared shirt, as the court read out the verdict.

The court said in a statement: "The criminal acts of Evergrande Group, Hengda Real Estate and Xu Ka Yan... involved a huge amount of money and extremely aggravating circumstances, and caused particularly significant economic losses and serious social consequences, and must be strictly punished in accordance with the law."

In addition to Xu’s sentence, the court fined Evergrande 8.82 billion yuan ($1.31 billion) and its main subsidiary Hengda 7 billion yuan. Five other senior executives were also fined and sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to 18 years.

“On August 20, 56 people linked to Evergrande were sentenced,” state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The company’s failure to repay billions of dollars in debt has cost low-income investors their savings. Xu founded Evergrande in 1996 and built it into China’s largest real estate developer by contract sales.

According to Forbes, Xu had a net worth of $45.3 billion in 2017, making him the richest person in Asia. A Hong Kong court ordered Evergrande to be wound up in 2024, and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange delisted it in 2025.

The liquidation commission said the process was moving too slowly. As of August 2025, only $255 million in assets had been sold against $45 billion in creditors’ claims.

Outside mainland China, the liquidation commission is fighting a legal battle to freeze offshore assets held by Xu and his ex-wife. They are seeking to recover $6 billion in dividends and bonuses paid to former executives.

In 2024, China’s securities regulator fined Xu $6.6 million. Evergrande's main unit was banned from the stock market for life after it was revealed that it had overstated profits and committed securities fraud.