A Hong Kong court ordered Evergrande Group to liquidate its assets this week, spelling the end to a two-year saga that made Evergrande the poster company for China’s real estate crisis.

The news sent the company’s stock plunging by over 20% in Hong Kong that morning before it was suspended from trading.

Evergrande is the world’s most indebted property developer, with liabilities in excess of $300bn. When the overleveraged firm was unable to pay interest on these debts in 2021, it sent the country’s housing market into a liquidity crisis and prompted a strong regulatory reaction from Beijing. Some analysts have called it China’s ‘Lehman Brothers moment’ in a nod to the U.S. financial crisis of 2008.

“It is time for the court to say enough is enough,” Hong Kong Justice Linda Chan said Monday 29 January after the company’s lawyers made a last-ditch effort for a restructuring deal.