After nine months of loan default by the bankrupt Chinese property developer Evergrande, the company's founder Xu Jiayin's "ex-wife" Ding Yumei has reportedly spent a fortune purchasing multiple luxury apartments in London.
According to a Bloomberg report on the 20th, Ding Yumei spent 49.8 million pounds (about 286 million ringgit) acquiring 33 properties in London.
After Evergrande’s debt crisis erupted, in 2023, rumors emerged that its founder Xu Jiayin had divorced his wife Ding Yumei. Outsiders have speculated the two may have undergone a "technical divorce," with Xu Jiayin using it as a means to transfer assets and allow Ding Yumei to receive huge dividends from Evergrande.
According to reports, in a court document from January this year, Ding Yumei owns 33 properties in the high-end Thames City residential project in London, though the document did not specify when the purchases took place.
Aggregating data from the UK Land Registry, these luxury properties worth 49.8 million pounds were purchased in September 2022—almost a year after Chinese authorities required Xu Jiayin to use his personal assets to repay debts.
The report says Ding Yumei holds these properties through five British Virgin Islands companies. According to the court documents, Ding Yumei has appointed JLL as the leasing and management agent. Sixty-eight-year-old Ding Yumei, along with two children and two grandchildren, is currently living in a mansion worth 5.4 million pounds.
The report mentions that in Evergrande’s filings submitted in August 2023, Ding Yumei was no longer listed as Xu Jiayin’s spouse, but it remains unknown when exactly the two divorced.
The report points out that the above UK properties are only a portion of Ding Yumei’s global assets exceeding US$350 million, highlighting the difficulty liquidators face in fully identifying assets held by Xu Jiayin and his associates, as well as the challenges in asserting control over assets across various legal jurisdictions.
Evergrande Group was listed in Hong Kong in 2009. Xu Jiayin was once China’s richest man, but began to face liquidity issues in 2021. At the beginning of 2024, the Hong Kong High Court ordered Evergrande’s liquidation. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2023 that Chinese authorities were investigating whether Xu Jiayin tried to transfer assets overseas during the company’s financial troubles. (Source: Central News Agency)