Evergrande: The rise and fall of a Chinese tycoon

Evergrande founder Xu Jiayin was born into rural poverty in a small town in 1958. He grew up on a dirt town during Mao Zedong's disastrous Cultural Revolution. Aged 37 in 1996, he established Evergrande then known as the Hengda Group. Within just two decades, tycoon would rise to become China's 15th richest man. His wealth has plunged by 80 per cent in four years with firm owing $400billion.

The billionaire tycoon behind Chinese beleaguered property giant Evergrande grew up in poverty before rising to become one of the world's richest men. Xu Jiayin, a former steel factory technician, was just 37 when he founded Evergrande in 1996 in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. The company chairman was born into rural poverty in October 1958 in the Gaoxian township, north of Wuhan, growing up in a hut with dirt floors.

His childhood in the Henan province was shaped by China's disastrous decade-long Cultural Revolution which outlawed free market capitalism and entrepreneurs like the kind he would grow up to be.

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