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 39 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.
But before Mr Xu turned 40 he founded the Hengda Group, later be known as Evergrande, which eventually grew into China's second biggest property developer.
More recently, Mr Xu was China's 15th richest man with Forbes estimating his wealth at $US43billion.
Xu Jiayin, a former steel factory technician, was just 39 when he founded Evergrande in 1996 in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou (he is pictured in 2017 when he was China's 15th richest man)
Less than two decades later, Mr Xu was China's 15th richest man with Forbes estimating his wealth at $US43billion. The tycoon, who grew up in a hut with dirt floors, in November 2014 secretly settled on a $39million Sydney Harbour waterfront mansion
With wealth came a very different life. In November 2014, he secretly settled on a $39million Sydney Harbour waterfront mansion.
Just four months later, he was given 90 days to sell the Villa del Mare residence in Point Piper for breaching Australian government rules on foreigners owning residential real estate.
China's building boom also benefited Australia, with iron ore prices in May climbing above $US200 a tonne in May this year as the Asian power bounced back from earlier Covid lockdowns.
But China now has too many apartment towers and has enough empty rooms to house 90million people in 65million units - with Evergrande
