China Evergrande Group, once the towering giant of the country’s property sector, has been officially delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, marking a dramatic end to a saga that has rocked China’s real estate market and cast a long shadow over the world’s second-largest economy. The delisting, which took effect on Monday, August 25, 2025, came after Evergrande failed to resume trading within the exchange’s 18-month deadline, following a suspension that began on January 29, 2024. This move, while anticipated by many observers, punctuates years of mounting debt, regulatory crackdowns, and a protracted property downturn that continues to ripple through China’s financial landscape.
Founded in 1996 by Hui Ka Yan—also known as Xu Jiayin—and headquartered in Shenzhen, Evergrande’s ascent was meteoric. The company rode the wave of China’s rapid urbanization and housing reforms, listing in Hong Kong in 2009. By 2017, its market capitalization soared to HK$398.8 billion (over US$50 billion), making Hui one of Asia’s wealthiest individuals, according to Financial Times. Evergrande borrowed heavily, tapping over $20 billion from international bond markets and expanding aggressively across China’s cities.
But the tide turned in 2020 when Chinese authorities, wary of ballooning debt across the sector, imposed strict controls known as the “three red lines.” These regulations barred highly indebted developers from taking on new debt to repay old loans, effectively squeezing Evergrande’s ability to operate. The company’s cash flows dried up, and by 2021, it had defaulted on offshore bonds, sending shockwaves through global markets. According to AP, fears of a broader financial contagion were somewhat eased only after China’s central bank assured that Evergrande’s troubles were “contained.”
Still, the damage was done. The property market, once a pillar of China’s economic miracle, began to unravel. Dozens of developers defaulted, construction projects stalled, and consumer confidence plunged. Homebuyers—many of whom had paid upfront for apartments not yet built—were left in limbo as Evergrande and its peers struggled to finish projects. The knock-on effects hit industries from construction materials and appliances to automobiles, as reported by Macau Daily Times. For most Chinese families, whose wealth is tied up in real estate, the declining housing market became a major drag on spending and sentiment.
Evergrande’s shares were last traded in January 2024 before a Hong Kong court ordered the company into liquidation after failed restructuring talks. The company’s market value had plummeted to just HK$2.15 billion (US$275.3 million) at the time of suspension. The Hong Kong Exchange’s rules are clear: if a company’s securities are suspended for 18 consecutive months, its listing may be canceled. For Evergrande, the writing was on the wall.
Liquidators Alvarez & Marsal, appointed to oversee the winding up, have faced a daunting task. As of August 2025, they reported recovering only $255 million in assets—including, somewhat bizarrely, a Claude Monet painting. Yet, the scale of Evergrande’s obligations dwarfs these recoveries. The company’s total liabilities exceed US$300 billion, with creditors filing claims totaling $45 billion by July 31, 2025. The liquidators have taken control of more than 100 companies within the Evergrande group, collectively valued at $3.5 billion as of January 2024, but warn that the value of assets and liabilities remains too uncertain to provide guidance on creditor recoveries.
The saga has not unfolded without controversy. Chinese regulators found that Evergrande had inflated its revenues by a staggering US$80 billion in 2019 and 2020. In the aftermath, PwC China, the company’s former auditor, was fined US$62 million and suspended from practice for six months in 2023. Legal action has since been filed against PwC by the liquidators, adding another layer of complexity to the unwinding process, as noted by Financial Times.
Evergrande’s collapse is emblematic of the broader challenges facing China’s real estate sector. According to AFP, the developer’s fall from grace was “absolutely inevitable,” with its stock market value nearly evaporated and the sector mired in a drawn-out struggle to complete construction projects. Dan Wang, China director at Eurasia Group, told AFP, “Now the expectation and consensus… is that the Chinese housing market has still not reached the bottom. But it will never bounce back to the historical high.”
The numbers tell a stark story. Across US$150 billion of defaulted offshore property bonds, less than 1 percent has been recovered, a sobering statistic for international investors. Meanwhile, home prices and investment have continued to fall, despite a raft of government measures aimed at stabilizing the market. Beijing has provided billions in lending and subsidies, encouraged local governments to buy up unsold apartments for affordable housing, and relaxed down payment and mortgage requirements. Some restrictions on investment purchases in major cities have been lifted earlier than expected, a move that HSBC Global Investment Research described as a “positive change showing government’s enhanced proactiveness.”
Yet, as July 2025 data shows, property prices continued to decline. Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING, wrote, “Given the high exposure of Chinese households to real estate, establishing a trough on prices is one of the most important factors to restoring confidence and generating a sustained consumption recovery. It’s difficult to expect consumers to spend with greater confidence if their biggest asset continues to decline in value every month.”
The Evergrande episode has forced a reckoning. China’s leaders have set a national growth target of around 5 percent for 2025, the same as last year—a goal many economists see as ambitious given the persistent headwinds. President Xi Jinping has emphasized the need for China to pivot toward a growth model powered more by domestic consumption and technological innovation, rather than relying so heavily on real estate and infrastructure. As Dan Wang of Eurasia Group put it, “The Evergrande collapse can serve as a good lesson for policymakers and market participants on the changing nature of China’s economy. Now it’s time to find an alternative engine for growth. If we are still betting on housing, that will be a mistake.”
For Evergrande’s creditors, the road ahead remains uncertain. The majority of the company’s assets are located on the Chinese mainland, complicating efforts to enforce repayment through Hong Kong’s courts. Evergrande’s brief Chapter 15 bankruptcy filing in New York in 2023 was later withdrawn, reflecting the complex cross-border legal terrain. As of now, creditors are left to navigate a process where, as one liquidator’s report called it, asset realization has been “modest.”
The delisting of China Evergrande Group is more than the end of a corporate story; it is a cautionary tale for an entire industry and a nation grappling with the consequences of debt-fueled growth. As policymakers search for new engines to power China’s future, the lessons of Evergrande will likely echo for years to come.
