Striding into the ballroom of one of his company’s hotels, glad-handing football stars and pouring champagne into a tower of flutes, Evergrande boss Hui Ka Yan was riding high.
It was 2015, and former Chelsea manager Luiz Felipe Scolari had just guided Hui’s football team, Guangzhou Evergrande, to victory in Asia’s Champions League. Also in the ballroom were team co-owner Chinese tech billionaire Jack Ma and Britain’s Prince Andrew.
Once a symbol of success and the embodiment of the incredible growth of China’s real estate sector over the past 20 years, Hui today faces a stunning reversal of fortunes. Evergrande is teetering on the brink of default, with more than $300bn of total liabilities and having missed an interest payment on a bond last month, which could spark China’s biggest debt restructuring.