Ahead of Hywin Holdings' (HYW.US) U.S. IPO in early 2021, the Chinese wealth management company sought to whet investor appetite with its ties to Evergrande Group (3333.HK), one of China’s leading property developers. China’s real estate market was booming then, with property values continuing a two-decade-long run of often logging double-digit gains each year.
"We are the largest distributor of real estate wealth management products in China ... which are popular among investors with relatively low risk tolerance in China," the Shanghai-based company boasted in its IPO prospectus.
Fast forward a little more than two years, when Hywin's CEO Wang Dian is now trying to distance her company from Evergrande, which has undergone a spectacular fall from grace to become a poster child for the debt woes of China's struggling property sector.