Teetering property developer Evergrande sparks contagion fears for China's economy

Property developer China Evergrande Group is teetering on the brink of collapse, weighed down by a giant debt load and billions of dollars of real estate it can't sell as quickly or as profitably as anticipated.

While trouble has been brewing for a year, it's coming to a head now, as the conglomerate missed one loan payment in June and more are expected. The company's offices were the site of angry protests this week, and things could get even uglier on Monday when the company is likely to miss another key interest payment to its increasingly concerned financiers.

Evergrande's possible collapse is sparking fears that it could take other parts of China's housing market down with it — and impact business interests outside China, too.

Here's a brief explainer of what you need to know about the story.

Founded in 1996 in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong, Evergrande is mostly a property developer, whose core business is buying up land and turning it into residential real estate. Company founder Hui Ka Yan is a former steel worker who rode China's 21st century real estate boom to a fortune that was at one point last year worth $30 billion US, good enough for the title of third-richest man in China. 

The company has built more than 1,300 housing developments in 280 cities in China, with plans for another 3,000 projects underway in various cities across the country.

But like any good conglomerate, it has expanded into all sort of other businesses, including bottled water and food, electric vehicles, theme parks, a Netflix-like streaming service with almost 40 million customers — and even a professional soccer team.