Evergrande's founder amassed billions in dividends before crisis

When Hui Ka Yan was cruising the world in a private jet, splurging on mansions and jewellery at the peak of China’s Gilded Age, his extravagant lifestyle barely stood out among the country’s burgeoning billionaire set.
 

Now the China Evergrande Group founder’s property empire is teetering on the edge of default — and his pers­onal fortune has landed squarely in the Chinese government’s crosshairs.
 

As Evergrande struggles to meet obligations to creditors, suppliers and homeowners, authorities in Beijing are urging Hui to alleviate the crisis with his own wealth. The directive came after Evergrande missed an initial September 23 deadline for an interest payment on one of its dollar bonds, according to people familiar with the matter.  That’s drawing fresh attention to a hard-to-answer question: Just how much money does Hui have? The sum -- while likely to be a tiny fraction of Evergrande’s more than $300 billion in liabilities — may help determine the severity of a crisis that has roiled China’s credit market and undermined confidence in a real estate sector that accounts for about a quarter of the nation’s economic output.
 

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates Hui’s fortune at $7.6 billion, down from $42 billion at its peak in 2017. While the value of his stake in Evergrande has dropped more than 80 per cent this year, Hui has received more than $7 billion in dividends since the company started trading in 2009, the most among 82 Chinese tycoons tracked by Bloomberg. 

The question of where Hui’s personal wealth has flowed may now factor into whether his company has the ability to keep paying debts in the near term. He wouldn’t be the first Chinese property tycoon to provide his firm with much-needed funding: Guangzhou R&F Properties Co.’s stock surged last month after major shareholders pledged $1 billion in financing.