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wanda, selling assets again!

in the first week of july, wanda sold three wanda plazas. although wanda’s big sales are already well known, the speed of this move is still shocking. according to incomplete statistics, since 2023, wanda commercial management has transferred control of at least 26 companies, including many wanda plazas in beijing, shanghai, guangzhou, etc.just recently, wanda has turned its attention to cultural tourism projects for sale.

01

40 billion project changes ownership to insurance company

according to tianyancha, nanjing wandamao investment co., ltd. has recently undergone industrial and commercial changes. dalian wanda commercial management group co., ltd. has withdrawn from the ranks of shareholders and added kunhua (tianjin) equity investment partnership (limited partnership) as a shareholder and wholly-owned , at the same time, many key personnel also changed.at this point, nanjing wanda mao is held by xinhua life insurance co., ltd. and cicc capital operations co., ltd. at 99.99% and 0.01% respectively.

turning our attention to this buyer - kunhua (tianjin) equity investment partnership, which also owns yantai zhifu wanda plaza co., ltd. which holds 99.99% of the shares, and beijing wanda plaza industrial co., ltd. which holds 99.99% of the shares. it can be said that he is considered an old buyer of wanda.

information shows that the nanjing wanda mall, which is mainly involved in this transfer of assets, is wanda’s first large-scale cultural tourism project in nanjing, with a total investment of up to 40 billion yuan. with the theme of "ancient capital of six dynasties", it covers an area of ​​40,000 square meters, with a construction area of ​​307,000 square meters and an investment of 15 billion yuan. the project is located in the all-weather jinling cultural theme park and the longest 520-meter indoor pedestrian street in china. the shape design incorporates the two cultural elements of nanjing's plum blossom and jinling folding fan to create a "plum blossom folding fan" architectural appearance. it has also successfully applied for the "largest folding fan building" big world guinness record.

nanjing wanda mall started construction of the project in 2016 and opened on june 1, 2018. it has 228 merchants, including 9 main stores including wanda cinema, wanda baby king, yonghui supermarket, and decathlon. on the first day of opening, the customer flow exceeded 26 thousands of people.

it is worth noting that xianlin wanda mall is still very popular even today, with sales reaching 1.77 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 12.3%, and the overall passenger flow is close to 21 million.therefore, the sale of wanda mall is not due to its own lack of commercial value, but more to wanda's way of relieving financial pressure by selling projects. it is also the epitome of wanda's asset-light transformation.

02

cultural tourism layout that has suffered repeated defeats

looking back at wanda’s cultural tourism dream, it can be said that it has had many twists and turns.

in 2009, wanda began to enter cultural tourism projects, and its first cultural tourism project was the changbai mountain project. in august of the same year, wanda invested 23 billion yuan in the changbai mountain project to build the first cultural tourism complex and build the changbai mountain international tourism resort covering an area of ​​21 square kilometers. it was the largest single tourism project in the country at that time. however, due to operational crises due to illegal construction rectification and unsaleable real estate, wanda transferred all its equity to dalian yifang group.

this obviously did not stop wanda’s cultural tourism layout. subsequently, wang jianlin expanded his layout in many places, especially wanda cultural tourism city. the investment amount in each project exceeded 20 billion yuan, covering harbin, nanchang, qingdao, hefei, wuxi, and guangzhou. and other cities, among which guangzhou wanda city has invested as much as 50 billion yuan. at that time, he even challenged disney, saying: "with wanda here, shanghai disneyland will not be able to make a profit within 20 years."

but the good times did not last long. in 2017, wanda cultural tourism ushered in a deal of the century.due to the tight capital chain, wanda sold 91% of its 13 cultural and tourism projects to sunac for 43.844 billion yuan; it also sold 77 hotels to r&f at a 40% discount, making r&f the largest luxury hotel owner at the time.in october 2018, sunac invested 6.281 billion yuan to acquire wanda’s original cultural tourism group and the design of 13 cultural tourism projects. at that time, wanda’s core cultural tourism business was basically divested.

after the deal of the century, the market once thought that wanda would give up its cultural tourism business. he took action again and signed multiple projects in lanzhou wanda city and neijiang wanda city. and at the end of 2022, it was stated that wanda group’s new direction in the cultural tourism industry is to “abandon the heavy and light”, that is, from the past asset-heavy model to asset-light operations - land belongs to the government, no large-scale capital investment, and reliance on brand ip , enterprise management and operation capabilities to enhance the influence of scenic spots and destinations.

compared with wanda’s other previous cultural and tourism projects, wanda mall’s commercial attributes have been significantly reduced, and it focuses on culture and entertainment, with retail sales accounting for less than 25%. wanda's idea is to enhance the consumption experience of tourist attractions and increase tourist consumption through the comprehensive utilization of cultural and tourism resources, thereby promoting the development of the local tourism economy. therefore, wanda mall will design different themes based on the different cultural and tourism resources of each city to achieve the uniqueness and cultural characteristics of each wanda mall project. for example, northeast china has a skiing theme, and qingdao is an experiential movie theme park.

however, this transformation has not been smooth. it is understood that many of wanda’s cultural and tourism cooperation with other groups in recent years have come to nothing.

in april 2023, zhangjiajie and wanda signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement to carry out light-asset cooperation on dayong ancient city, including operational planning, investment promotion and operation of the built parts, as well as preliminary planning of the vacant parts. but after april this year, zhangjiajie responded that "because there is no substantive cooperation, the strategic agreement is invalid." however, according to recent news, dayong ancient city is not having a good time, and it is already facing bankruptcy and reorganization.

the following june, the datong municipal government signed a comprehensive strategic agreement with wanda for major projects including datong ancient city cultural tourism project, commercial complex and other major projects. however, in the official statements later on promoting the construction of datong ancient city, wanda cultural tourism was not included as a participant. in august of the same year, wanda signed a series of agreements on cultural tourism industry cooperation with the yichun municipal government and related enterprises. but this year, there is no cooperation progress with wanda cultural tourism on the official government website.

in addition to the stagnation of many cultural tourism projects, wanda’s latest cultural tourism layout is also in trouble.just in the middle of last month, the national enterprise credit information publicity system showed that dalian wanda group co., ltd. had a new equity freeze information. the company whose equity was executed was beijing wanda cultural tourism industry co., ltd., and the frozen equity amount was 100 million yuan. , the freezing period will be until july 29, 2027. beijing wanda cultural tourism company was established only three months ago. its business scope includes tourism business, entertainment activities, scenic spot management, etc.

03

cultural tourism or real estate

the road to transformation is long

the twists and turns of wanda’s transformation are actually exactly the current situation of many real estate, cultural and tourism companies. on the one hand, there is a domestic practice of deeply binding the cultural tourism and real estate industries. in the context of the dramatic changes in the real estate economy in recent years, many real estate companies have been looking for a way out and can only choose to abandon cultural tourism projects; on the other hand, "real estate + culture" the "travel" model itself does not adapt to the current development trend. cultural tourism projects need to rely on their own operations to recover investment costs, which requires them to be lightweight, small investment, and quick to recover. obviously, real estate cultural tourism does not meet this point. .

for example, r&f real estate hotels, which is facing liquidation recently, will have 71 hotels put on the shelves for sale in 2022, 53 of which were acquired from wanda hotel asset package. in addition to the hotel, r&f has been interested in selling hainan ocean world as early as 2020. in 2021, it officially issued an announcement seeking to sell it, but there is still no suitable buyer.

blu-ray development, a former 100-billion-dollar real estate company, even packaged and sold several cultural and tourism projects with assets of about 1.5 billion yuan for 1 yuan, including the tianjin station project, which once cost 1.96 billion yuan. it is hoped that through debt-based acquisitions, the company's liabilities can be reduced by approximately 9.191 billion yuan while selling assets. or evergrande is stuck in the quagmire of multiple unfinished projects. in addition to the evergrande children’s world project that has been stranded, most of the various cultural and tourism projects are still in the predicament of unfinished, suspended work, and waiting for takeover.

however, the sale of nanjing wanda mall does not mean the decline of wanda’s cultural tourism industry. in terms of hotels, since this year, wanda hotels has continued to expand its market territory, successfully opening 19 new hotels in the first half of the year, and also signed 53 entrusted management hotel projects. in addition, wanda group has not completely abandoned the wanda mao product line. changchun wanda mao has begun to resume production, and shanxi taiyuan also plans to introduce the wanda mao brand in jinyang lake.

therefore, selling assets may only be to obtain quick cash flow and relieve short-term financial pressure. this can be seen from the fact that wanda culture was renamed wanda culture tourism last year, and the wanda culture and tourism planning and design institute was established to provide services such as planning and design, investment and construction, and to use the wanda hotels and resorts brand to manage more than 100 of its hotels. wanda attaches great importance to cultural tourism business.wanda cultural tourism is still actively exploring a path of transformation from residential real estate to commercial real estate and cultural tourism production lines.