Evergrande Group


The Evergrande Group or the Evergrande Real Estate Group is China's second-largest property developer by sales. It is based in southern China's Guangdong Province, and sells apartments mostly to upper and middle-income dwellers. As of 2018, it is the world's most valuable real estate company.
The holding company of the group is incorporated in the Cayman Islands.
In 2017, Evergrande stocks, share price, profits and revenue, surged to almost three to four times in value, propelling founder Xu Jiayin to one of China's richest men, as well as one of the wealthiest people in Asia.

History

Formerly called the Hengda Group, Evergrande was founded by Xu Jiayin in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in 1996.
In October 2009 the company raised $722 million in an initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The group bought football club Guangzhou Evergrande F.C. in 2010 and invested heavily, and under Marcello Lippi they won the 2013 AFC Champions League. The group has a mineral water brand Evergrande Spring and a football tutoring school.
In recent years Chinese property developers like Evergrande and Dalian Wanda have made forays into "alternative, income-generating businesses away from the property market". For example, Evergrande has expanded into solar panels, pig farming, agribusiness, and baby formula.

Operations

The firm has developed projects in over 170 cities in China. It is one of the 10 largest real estate developers in Mainland China, and one of the five largest real estate developers in Guangdong Province—the other four being Country Garden, Guangzhou R&F Properties, Hopson Development, and Agile Property.
Evergrande Group currently owns 45.8 million square metres of development land and real estate projects in 22 cities, including Guangzhou, Tianjin, Shenyang, Wuhan, Kunming, Chengdu, Chongqing, Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Changsha, Nanning, Xian, Taiyuan, and Guiyang. in Mainland China, which ranks second among the Mainland real estate developers, just after Country Garden.
Alibaba CEO Jack Ma has a minority share of the company. Alibaba also has a 50% stake in the football club.
As of 2016, founder and chairman Xu Jiayin was the eighth-richest person in Chinese, worth $4.9 billion. As of June 2019, his net worth was reported as US$30.4 billion, making him the third-richest person in China.
The under-construction Ocean Flower Island, located in Hainan, is one of its major projects. Evergrande Plaza, in Chengdu, was designed by Aedas, and completed in 2014.
Evergrande Health, a listed subsidiary of Evergrande Group, is now the largest shareholder of Faraday Future, after having acquired a 45 percent stake in the automotive company, for a total of $2 billion.

Citron Research report

In 2016, the Hong Kong Market Misconduct Tribunal suspended American short seller and Citron Research founder Andrew Left for five years, due to the publication of a highly critical report on the company, "finding him culpable of disclosing false or misleading information inducing transactions under the Securities and Futures Ordinance in the publication of a research report on Evergrande Real Estate Group Limited in June 2012." The trading ban "has raised concerns over freedom of speech in Hong Kong’s financial markets."