The super-wealthy in China have not had a good few years, especially those who made their fortunes in the once-hot real estate market.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Hui Ka Yan’s net worth, the chairman of the real estate developer China Evergrande, has decreased by about 93%. Hui was formerly the second-richest person in Asia, but according to Bloomberg, his wealth has decreased from $42 billion, when it peaked in 2017, to just $3 billion.
With $300 billion in liabilities, Evergrande is China’s most indebted developer and the cause of the country’s real estate woes since 2021. Selling his homes and private planes, Hui, also known as Xu Jiayin in Mandarin, utilized his personal money to support his struggling business.
However, that was far from enough, and Evergrande eventually went into default on its US dollar notes in December 2021 after frantically trying to find money for months to pay back investors, creditors, and suppliers. The company’s failure to deliver its initial debt restructuring plan the previous year raised more questions about its survival.
Evergrande is enormous. In 2020, it generated more than $110 billion in sales, employed approximately 200,000 people, and owned more than 1,300 developments spread across more than 280 cities.
For a long time, analysts have expressed concern that the failure of Evergrande could lead to greater dangers for the Chinese real estate market, harming homeowners and the larger financial system. Up to 30% of the GDP is generated by the real estate industry and related businesses.
Hui isn’t the only one who has recently witnessed significant financial destruction, though. Bloomberg reported last month that Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, had become the first person ever to lose $200 billion in wealth.
The majority of Musk’s fortune is invested in Tesla, whose shares fell 65% in 2022.