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Chinese Firm Wanda Announces Six New Acquisitions

Dalian Wanda GroupThe Chinese property firm Dalian Wanda has announced that it plans to create a financial holdings company and acquire new firms while stepping out of the real estate sector.

The Hong Kong listed private company said that it would acquire three domestic and three foreign non-property firms in 2015 in a bid to re-organize its business. Recently, the firm published its acquisition plans on its official website, according to which, the new financial holdings firm will be one of its four major business units. The company is quite optimistic about its plans to establish a new finance firm in spite of the decline in Chinese stocks during the last four weeks.

A company representative said:

Wanda will complete acquisition of banks, security and insurance companies, and form the Wanda financial group with the existing Wanda Investment Company.

Michael Cole of a real estate information portal called Mingtiandi said:

It looks like they’re betting that the stock market crisis will be a blip, and that the government will get this under control.

Wanda Chairman Wang Jianlin stated that the focus of the finance firm will be on “Internet plus” finance.

In June, the company used crowdfunding techniques to raise as much as $800 million for a shopping plaza chain by offering investors guaranteed returns of 12% through rentals. The firm plans to re-organize its businesses into four major sectors—commercial property, entertainment, finance, and ecommerce. According to financial analysts, the company has additional initial public offerings (IPO) in mind. Cole said:

This looks like a maneuver to create more IPOs. My guess is that more divisions means more possible stock listings.

Wanda, a private company belonging to the Wang family, has raised $3.5 billion through its commercial real estate business, listed in Hong Kong, in 2014. Early in June, the firm had announced that it would raise up to $1.9 billion through a Chinese share offering for five ongoing mainland projects.

Recently, the company has been acquiring several firms, one of which is the US AMC, a chain of cinemas. This year, the firm purchased a 20% share of Atletico Madrid Football Club along with a sports rights agency managed by former Fifa president’s nephew, Sepp Blatter. The firm has announced plans to purchase Lions Gate Entertainment, a Hollywood movie producer.

Wanda is the biggest builder of shopping plazas in the country, but is in danger of being eclipsed by Alibaba, the giant ecommerce company.