Power players: Evergrande and the unraveling of China’s property boom

For years, China’s property boom helped drive the country’s extraordinary economic growth. At the centre of it was Evergrande, which grew from a regional developer into a sprawling corporate empire, and one of the world’s most indebted companies.

Then the debts caught up with it. Evergrande’s collapse exposed the vulnerabilities of China’s property model, helping push the wider housing market into crisis and weighing on the country’s economy.

Now its founder, Hui Ka-yan, has been sentenced to life in prison for crimes including bribery and illegal use of funds.

Will Bain and Rahul Tandon are joined by Jennifer Pak in Beijing to explore how Evergrande became so big, what went wrong, how its collapse exposed the problems in China’s property model, and what it means for the wider global economy.

(Photo: China Evergrande Group then-Chairman, Hui Ka Yan, attends a news conference on the property developer's annual results in Hong Kong, China 28 March, 2017. He has short black hair with a side parting and wears a white shirt with a red patterned tie and a black suit jacket. In the background is a city skyline of skyscrapers, reflected in blue water. Credit: Bobby Yip/Reuters)

You can email the team: [email protected]

Presenter: Will Bain, Rahul Tandon and Jennifer Pak
Producer: David Cann