Another luxury property is heading to the auction block. This time, the property belongs to Xia Haijun, the former president of Evergrande Group.
A top-floor duplex in Guangzhou's Zhujiang New Town has been listed on the Alibaba Judicial Auction platform with a starting price of 49.4385 million yuan. The owner listed for the property is Xia Haijun. The auction is scheduled to commence in less than two weeks.
The property, located in the Guangyuezunfu residential complex on Qingfeng South Street in Tianhe District, spans the 25th and 26th floors. It covers an area of 428 square meters and features 7 bedrooms, 5 living rooms, and 6 bathrooms. Within the complex, only two duplexes share this floor area, making this one of them.
The assessed value provided by the evaluation agency is 70.6265 million yuan. The starting price represents a discount of approximately 30%, equating to about 115,400 yuan per square meter. The successful buyer will also be responsible for outstanding property management fees and related charges up to February 2026, amounting to roughly 108,000 yuan. The land use rights, obtained in 1999, are valid until 2069. The property's ownership is clear, it is currently unoccupied, and the court will handle the clearance and handover, eliminating concerns about eviction.
The location of Guangyuezunfu is exceptional, situated in the core area of Zhujiang New Town with direct river views and adjacent to Zhujiang Park. Developed by New World China around 2010, this project has been a benchmark in Guangzhou's luxury residential market. In 2023, a second-hand unit in this complex sold for 86.6 million yuan, exceeding a unit price of 300,000 yuan per square meter. In 2025, four flat units were sold with the lowest unit price reaching 143,300 yuan per square meter and the highest surpassing 200,000 yuan.
By comparison, the starting price of 115,400 yuan per square meter for this judicial auction property is notably lower. By mid-May, over 700 users had set reminders on the Alibaba platform, with nearly 10,000 views. The auction is set to begin at 10:00 AM on June 1st and will last for 24 hours, with a deposit requirement of 9.88 million yuan alone.
Xia Haijun, born in 1964 in Harbin, has an impressive academic background with a bachelor's degree in Metal Materials from Central South University, and an MBA and a Ph.D. in Industrial Economics from Jinan University. He joined Evergrande in 2007 and quickly became a key confidant of founder Xu Jiayin, serving as Vice Chairman of the Board and President, overseeing daily operations and capital market activities.
He played a leading role in Evergrande's Hong Kong listing and implemented the "high turnover, high leverage, high expansion" strategy that propelled the company from a developer with tens of billions in sales to an industry giant exceeding 200 billion yuan in sales scale. His compensation reflected this growth. In 2008, when Evergrande's sales first exceeded 10 billion yuan, his annual salary was 5 million yuan. By 2017, his annual salary had risen to 270 million yuan, topping the Forbes "Hong Kong-listed Chinese Stock CEO Pay Ranking" and earning him the title of "Emperor of Salaried Workers" in the real estate sector. Beyond salary, court documents later revealed Xia Haijun also received substantial income through equity incentives and bonuses during his tenure at Evergrande, though the full amount has not been publicly disclosed. It is confirmed that he had liquidated a significant portion of his holdings early.
In July 2022, on the eve of the full eruption of Evergrande's debt crisis, Xia Haijun abruptly resigned from all his positions at the company. Subsequently, Evergrande descended into severe financial distress, with total liabilities exceeding 2.5 trillion yuan by the time it was ordered into liquidation by a Hong Kong court. Xia Haijun was alleged to have attempted to transfer assets multiple times around the time of his departure. In June 2024, a top-floor duplex he owned in The Pavilia Hill, North Point, Hong Kong, was sold for HK$82 million. The property, purchased in 2019 along with three parking spaces for approximately HK$160 million, represented a loss of nearly half its value.
In the same month, Evergrande's liquidators applied to the Hong Kong court for a worldwide asset freezing order, freezing Xia Haijun's assets in Hong Kong valued at up to HK$60 billion and prohibiting him from disposing of proceeds from property sales. Xia Haijun contested the order. From the issuance of the injunction in 2024, he applied four times to have it set aside or appealed, but all applications were dismissed. On January 2, 2026, the Hong Kong Court of Appeal finally dismissed his application for leave to appeal, upholding the injunction. The court's judgment stated directly that Xia Haijun had repeatedly adjusted his arguments but failed to provide compelling grounds, and his application had no reasonable prospect of success.
Another detail emerged from Hong Kong court documents and media reports: after leaving Evergrande, Xia Haijun's whereabouts were unknown for an extended period. In August 2025, reports suggested he was residing in Irvine, California, USA, with his wife and child. His wife reportedly holds three properties and four vehicles in California, with a total value of approximately $24 million USD (about 170 million yuan). Their 12-year-old son attends a local private school.
In March 2024, Evergrande Real Estate announced it had received an advance notice of administrative penalty from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). The investigation concluded that Evergrande Real Estate's 2019 and 2020 annual reports contained serious false records, with inflated revenue totaling 564.1 billion yuan and inflated profits totaling 92 billion yuan over the two years. Furthermore, Evergrande used these falsified financial data to publicly issue five batches of corporate bonds totaling 20.8 billion yuan, constituting fraudulent issuance.
In September of that year, the CSRC formally penalized Xia Haijun: a warning and a fine of 5 million yuan for the false annual report records, and a fine of 10 million yuan for fraudulent issuance, totaling 15 million yuan. Simultaneously, he was subjected to a lifetime ban from the securities market. The penalty notice included a statement that Xia Haijun "organized and arranged the preparation of false financial reports, employing particularly egregious means under particularly serious circumstances."
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