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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Adlots podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

And I'm Joe Wisenthal. So Joe, how much do you know about China Evergrande?

So I was going to start by saying, I think this is going to be one of the episodes

where I sit back and do a lot of listening. I'm excited to participate in it,

but I know that it's a very big real estate development company in China and they've had

financial troubles and that really is about the extent of my knowledge.

I have no doubt that you're going to ask some really interesting questions, but I guess just to

introduce the topic. I mean, China Evergrande has sort of loomed large in Asia for a long time and

I think anyone who has any interest in Chinese, the Chinese economy or Chinese finance has probably

heard of the company. I've always described it as the poster child for politically well-connected,

but over-indeaded Chinese real estate firms and I know that sounds like a really niche category,

but there are actually a lot of companies that would match that description. But China Evergrande

was like the ultimate one of those. It ended up being this really weird mix of a property company,

you know, a real estate developer, but it also had a healthcare division and it also develops

its own electric cars and it also has like a mineral water business and theme parks and the

interesting thing about it like a soccer team. Yeah, I was about to mention so and the interesting

thing is like they've always kind of aligned themselves with the political goals of the Chinese

Communist Party. So for instance, I think in 2014, President Xi Jinping made like this throw away

comment about how he wanted China to be a force in soccer one day and he was hoping they would

...