Evergrande’s US$460 Million Man Is Top CEO to Fall in China Crisis

Xia, a Canadian citizen using a doctorate in industrial economy from Jinan University, joined Evergrande in June 2007 as CEO right after working at subsidiaries of state-owned expense firm Citic Team for 13 yrs.  

At Evergrande, the native of the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin had full charge of the daily operations, including its financial and capital transactions, management and legal affairs. He started in order to lead the company’s interim results delivering presentations in 2016, getting an important figure to get global investors as well as the media.  

Xia’s compensation had been so lucrative that he quickly earned themselves the nickname “emperor of workers” in Chinese media.

Since 2009, whenever Evergrande went public and started disclosing executive pay, this individual collected more than US$210 million in salary, plus another US$250 million from working out options and selling stock, according to Bloomberg calculations.  

When the property problems escalated last year, Xia sold all their remaining dollar provides, including the ones he bought in 2020 to help shore up sentiment. He dropped about US$73 million from the sale of 3 debentures, an evaluation of filings demonstrated.

He revealed the trades about 50 % a year later, sparking compliance concerns. These bonds now business at less than 1/10th of their face worth.

As of the newest disclosure in Sept, Xia still kept about 35 mil Evergrande shares below its options plan and stakes in the property-management and electric-vehicle units worth regarding US$20 million mixed.  

Evergrande did not reply to requests for comment. Bloomberg News wasn’t capable of contact Xia.  

Xia’s problem came unexpectedly inside a statement last week. Evergrande said he, along with Chief Financial Officer Pan Darong plus an executive chief executive at the company’s mainland division, helped set up 13. 4 billion dollars yuan (US$2 billion) of pledges given by the property-services unit to help third parties obtain bank loans.

While part of the funds were transferred to Evergrande indirectly, the particular borrowers failed to repay the debt, resulting in the particular enforcement of the deposit guarantee.  

As a result, the constructor said it’s contemplating appointing an expert to conduct a comprehensive review of the firm’s internal control and risk management.  

Shawn Siu, which replaced Xia, became a member of Evergrande in Nov 2013. He holds a bachelor’s education in arts through Beijing Normal College and completed a postgraduate program within economic law in the Southwest University of Political Science and Law in the main Chinese city of Chongqing. Most recently, he had been an executive director at Evergrande plus chairman of its electric-car unit.  

His salary this past year: 15, 000 yuan a month. The company did not provide details about his compensation with his newest promotion.