China’s stock watchdog fines property developer Evergrande, slaps lifetime ban on its chairman

BANGKOK (AP) — Troubled property developer China Evergrande Group says Beijing’s stock watchdog has fined it 4.2 billion yuan ($333.4 million) for allegedly falsifying its revenue, among other violations, as it conducts a deep clean of the troubled financial sector.

The company said in a release to mainland Chinese stock exchanges late Monday that its chairman, Hui Ka Yan, was fined 47 million yuan ($6.5 million) and banned from China’s markets for life. Hui, also known as Xu Jiayin, was detained by authorities in September for suspected “illegal crimes.”

The notice cited a preliminary ruling by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, which recently got a new chief, Wu Qing, an industry veteran with a reputation for being tough on market misbehavior.

Evergrande is the world’s most indebted property developer, with more than $300 billion in debts. It is among dozens of Chinese companies that have collapsed since 2020 under official pressure to rein in excessive borrowing that the ruling Communist Party views as a threat to the economy.

Regulators are striving to reassure investors after Chinese markets slumped in the past year, in tandem with the downturn in the property market. Even after regulators announced a raft of new policies to support the markets, pledging to root out insider trading and other abuses, the Shanghai Composite index is still 5.8% below its level a year earlier, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng has fallen 15.3%.

The fallout from the property crisis has also affected China’s shadow banking industry — institutions that provide financial services similar to banks but operate outside of banking regulations.

A Chinese media report said police in Beijing had detained suspects, including senior executives, in