The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) “plans to rule in favour of issuing a lifelong ban from entering the securities market to (chairman) Xu Jiayin”, the company’s flagship unit Hengda Real Estate said in a filing to the Shenzhen stock exchange.

Evergrande “received an advance notice from the CSRC of administrative penalties and market bans targeting … illegal and illicit behaviours”, said the filing.

The company itself will “be ordered to make corrections and be issued with a warning as well as a fine of 4.175 billion yuan”.

The ruling will conclude that Xu “made decisions and organised the implementation of financial fraud, using particularly egregious means and under particularly serious circumstances”, according to the filing.

He will also “be issued a warning and a fine of 47 million yuan”.

Evergrande’s astronomical debt has become a potent symbol of a years-long crisis in China’s property market – with knock-on effects across the world’s second-largest economy.

In January, a Hong Kong court issued a winding-up order for Evergrande, though the firm said its operations in the mainland would be unaffected by the decision.