China’s Wanda To Sell Beverly Hills Development
January 30, 2018
China’s Wanda To Sell Beverly Hills Development
China’s Dalian Wanda Group is to sell its Beverly Hills development that was once pegged to become its Hollywood headquarter.
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The group, run by Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin, is reportedly selling both is California development and its complex in Chicago as it offloads a number of global property assets after drawing the ire of Chinese regulators.
Bloomberg reported that the company is looking for buyers for both properties, which are estimated to have cost the firm over $2BN. The Beverly Hills location was bought in 2014 and is across the road from the Beverly Hilton hotel, while it owns 60% of the Chicago skyscraper.
It comes a day after Tencent Holding lead a consortium of investors to acquire a 14% stake in Wanda Commercial Properties for $5.37B. Tencent, Suning Holdings, JD.com and Sunac China Holdings are to buy out minority private investors will help Wanda avoid potential payments and comes as it beats a retreat from property development. Wanda Commercial is the world’s biggest commercial property company. It was delisted from the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2016. If the company fails to list on the mainland Chinese market by September, Wang would have had to pay back investors who backed the delisting with a 12% annual return for domestic investors, and 10% for those overseas.
It also comes a week after Wanda Chairman Wang outlined plans for 2018, including a focus on reducing corporate debt and predicting a comeback for his embattled company. In 2017, the real estate and entertainment giant was involved in a crackdown on so-called “irrational investments,” with Chinese authorities ordering the country’s biggest banks to stop making loans to Wanda to finance foreign entertainment acquisitions.