The billionaire boss of beleaguered Chinese property developer Evergrande Group (恆大集團) is being held by police, a report said yesterday, as the debt-ridden company grapples with severe financial difficulties.
Xu Jiayin (許家印), who is known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, was taken away by authorities earlier this month, anonymous sources cited by Bloomberg News said.
He is being held under “residential surveillance,” the report said, which does not mean he has been arrested or charged with a crime.
Photo: Reuters
Evergrande did not respond to a request for comment.
The 65-year-old chairman was once China’s richest man, with a taste for luxury labels and yachts, and a nose for praising the Chinese Communist Party that steered the economy to a home-ownership boom.
Xu’s wealth is now estimated at US$1.8 billion — down from US$42 billion in 2017 — according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
On Sunday evening, Evergrande announced that it was unable to issue new debt as its subsidiary, Hengda Real Estate Group Co (恆大地產集團), missed a key debt payment and was being investigated.
Chinese financial Web site Caixin reported that former executives at the unit had been detained.
That came two days after the company said that meetings this week on a key restructuring plan would not take place.
It added that it was “necessary to reassess the terms” of the plan to suit the “objective situation and the demand of the creditors.”
Earlier this month, authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen said they had arrested several Evergrande employees, and urged the public to report any cases of suspected fraud.
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