Nine months after Evergrande’s loan default, Xu Jiayin’s ex-wife spent huge sums of money to buy multiple luxury houses in London

Evergrande's risks have not been cleared yet, but the life of its founder's ex-wife has attracted much attention.

Nine months after Evergrande’s loan default, Ding Yumei, the ex-wife of Evergrande founder Xu Jiayin, has spent a huge amount of money to buy multiple luxury apartments in London.

According to Bloomberg, a court document in January this year showed that Xu Jiayin's ex-wife Ding Yumei owned 33 apartments in Thames, a high-end residential project in London, but the court document did not mention the purchase time.

The report, based on data compiled by the UK Land Registration documents, pointed out that these properties worth about £49.8 million were purchased in September 2022. At this time, it was nearly a year after the relevant departments urged Xu Jiayin to use his personal net worth to repay his debts. Public information shows that Xu Jiayin's ex-wife Ding Yumei owned these properties through five British Virgin Islands companies. Ding Yumei hired JLL as a loan agent and managed the properties, according to documents from the British court in January.

According to court documents, the apartment she currently lives in is one of the most expensive houses she bought, worth 5.4 million pounds, which is 50 million yuan. Ding Yumei lives with her two children and two grandchildren.

According to the announcement submitted by Evergrande in August 2023, Ding Yumei is no longer listed as the spouse of Evergrande Chairman Xu Jiayin, but it is not clear at present when the two will divorce.

From this perspective, the divorce between the two was obviously prepared in advance.

Currently, Xu Jiayin's ex-wife Ding Yumei has more than US$350 million in assets worldwide, including a record-breaking luxury home in the heart of London that she purchased in 2020, and other properties in Vancouver.

With Evergrande's debt default, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Evergrande liquidators to fully grasp the assets held by Xu Jiayin and his confidants.

Especially the property Ding Yumei bought in Thames, London, the transaction coincided with a critical period when relevant departments urged Xu Jiayin to repay their debts with their personal assets (late 2021 to 2022), which also triggered speculation from the outside world about asset transfers to avoid debts.

As the founder of Evergrande, it is obvious that Xu Jiayin is at least clear about Evergrande's internal debt situation, which also forces Xu Jiayin's ex-wife Ding Yumei to purchase real estate crazily overseas.

In addition to London real estate, Ding Yumei also owns many luxury homes around the world, with a total value of up to US$8.5 billion (including Vancouver, London's top apartments and yachts, etc.).

And Ding Yumei's lifestyle is even more luxurious. According to the disclosure in 2024, Ding Yumei spent US$4 million (about RMB 28.8 million) in her residence in London in half a year.

This also forms a sharp contrast with Evergrande's after the storm. Currently, Evergrande's debt exceeds 2 trillion yuan, employees' salaries are arrears and projects are unfinished, and creditors have no way to recover. Ding Yumei continued to purchase assets during the crisis, aggravating public doubts about hollowing out the company's assets. In particular, Evergrande has benefited its family through super high dividends (a total of nearly 70 billion yuan).

At present, the Hong Kong High Court has assigned liquidators to recover Evergrande's debts. The real estate under Ding Yumei's name is listed as potential debt repayment assets, and there is a risk of being forcibly taken over or auctioned.

Dan Ding Yumei's huge asset acquisition timeline, offshore company operations and other details point to the possibility of evading debt repayment responsibilities by dividing property. From this perspective, since Ding Yumei purchased real estate in many countries, it is still very difficult to recover these assets legally.

High-end overseas housing is becoming a financial haven for some people.

Although housing prices in some core areas of London fell (such as Westminster fell by 20%), the luxury housing market is still favored by international capital and has strong long-term value preservation. Ding Yumei's choice to buy a property in London is also in line with the common path for high-net-worth individuals to transfer assets.

Ding Yumei's house purchase behavior needs to wait for judicial determination at the legal level (such as whether it involves the transfer of common debt assets within marriage), but it has aroused strong criticism at the moral and social responsibility level.

As the ex-wife of Evergrande founder Xu Jiayin, Ding Yumei spent a huge amount of money to buy a house overseas when Evergrande was at its most critical moment, and on the other hand, she also had a tactical divorce from Xu Jiayin and enjoyed a luxurious life overseas.

On one side is a debt crisis and a luxury consumption. Perhaps from a legal perspective, liquidators face difficulties in pursuing these assets, but from a moral perspective, Ding Yumei's behavior obviously violates the principles of business. The divorce procedure between Ding Yumei and Xu Jiayin was completed from the end of 2022 to June 2023, while the Evergrande debt crisis broke out in full swing by the end of 2021. In September 2022 (that is, before the divorce), Ding Yumei spent £49.8 million to purchase 33 apartments in London, a move that was questioned for paving the way for asset transfers before debt liability cuts.

From the timeline, the two are very coincidental and it is difficult to rule out that it is an occasional factor.

In August 2023, Evergrande announced that Ding Yumei's title was changed from "Mrs. Xu" to "independent third party". Since then, Xu Jiayin has tried to cut off her relationship with Evergrande at the legal level. However, the Hong Kong court pointed out that Ding Yumei was still the spouse of Xu Jiayin during the 2017-2020 Evergrande debt accumulation period, and the change of identity was deliberate.

In addition, Evergrande liquidator accused Xu Jiayin of transferring more than 40 billion yuan of assets into his personal name through divorce, far exceeding the reasonable financial division scope of "emotional breakdown", which also has the possibility of avoiding debt risks.

Evergrande's problem is obviously not just Evergrande's problem. As the founder, Xu Jiayin, his business decisions and aggressive business model have gradually led to Evergrande reaching today.

When a company is facing a debt crisis and the founder is still thinking about dividing property, this practice is even more contrary to a company's social responsibility and moral code.

It can be said that Evergrande has come to this day.

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