Evergrande Group fined US$577 million by China for fraudulent bond issuance | Wilnesh News

China Evergrande Group has been fined 4.18 billion yuan ($577 million) for fraudulent bond issuance and illegal information disclosure, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said on Friday.

Regulators also fined Evergrande founder Xu Jiayin 47 million yuan and banned him from the securities market for life, according to the statement.

Evergrande Properties first disclosed planned penalties in a March filing after a China Securities Regulatory Commission investigation found the developer inflated revenue between 2019 and 2020 and issued bonds based on those false statements.

Evergrande is the world’s most indebted real estate developer, with debts exceeding US$300 billion. It defaulted on its overseas debt at the end of 2021 and was ordered to be liquidated by a Hong Kong court earlier this year.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission stated that the maximum amount of the penalty was the most severe since the bond market unified law enforcement.

The regulatory agency also stated that it is promoting the investigation of relevant intermediaries in Evergrande, but did not disclose details.

China is considering imposing a record fine of at least 1 billion yuan on accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and suspending some of the auditor’s work on Evergrande’s audit, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

Evergrande did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment, but a spokesperson told 21st Century Business Herald that the company will cooperate with regulators and has completed more than 80% of development projects across the country.

Evergrande said in its March filing that a China Securities Regulatory Commission investigation found that the company had inflated revenue by 213.99 billion yuan in 2019, accounting for half of its total revenue.

Other senior managers, including Mr. Xu, will also be barred from the securities market, the filing said.