China’s Evergrande veers toward default — and a $300 billion global shock

Only two years ago, real estate tycoon Xu Jiayin hovered at the top of China’s rich lists as a model of the country’s swaggering, newfound wealth.

Evergrande, the company he founded in 1996, was among China’s largest developers. It built and sold millions of apartments each year to middle-class Chinese families eager to invest their savings in a seemingly endless housing boom. He owned a successful soccer club, showed up at high-level political meetings wearing ostentatious designer belts and took his private jet to Paris on a whim.