China's regulator to ban Evergrande chairman from entering securities market for life

China's securities regulator imposed a fine of 47 million yuan on China Evergrande Group's former chairman Hui Ka-yan and banned him from participating in the country's securities market for life after he was caught out in fraudulent behavior, according to an exchange filing from the property developer on Monday.

The company's flagship unit Hengda Real Estate was also handed a fine of 4.2 billion yuan over suspected fraudulent bond issues, it said in a filing to Shenzhen bourse.

Evergrande's wealth unit ran into problems in 2021, after struggling to make payments on about 40 billion yuan (HK$43.47 billion) of investment products.

It sparked protests and prompted the company to offer reduced amounts of cash or discounted real estate instead. It initially offered to pay investors in installments, but stopped doing so two years later when its liquidity crunch worsened.

Evergrande filed for bankruptcy in New York back in August, and trading of the group’s shares was suspended in September. 

In January, the High Court of Hong Kong also ordered the liquidation of Evergrande Group and appointed Alvarez & Marsal as the liquidator.

(Staff reporter, Reuters and Bloomberg)