The once-glorious Wang Jianlin is still shrinking his business. After the Spring Festival, Wanda took another step to "lose weight". A few days ago, at the Suning Tesco Spring Festival Gala, Zhang Jindong announced the official acquisition of 37 Wanda department stores.
This is not the first time Mr. Wang has sold assets. Wang Jianlin has focused on asset sales since June 2017, whether it is overseas projects or domestic assets, he can sell at any time.
So which big guy became the surviving "takeover man" of Wang Jianlin's broken arm? Let today's headline machine tell you in chronological order.
Large enterprises, 63.7 billion
On July 19, 2017, Sunac, Wanda and R&F officially signed a contract. R&F Real Estate acquired 77 hotel projects under Wanda Commercial for RMB19.9 billion, and Sunac China acquired 91% of Wanda Commercial's 13 cultural tourism projects in Xishuangbanna, Nanchang and other places for RMB43.8 billion. Through this sale, Wang Jianlin returned 63.7 billion yuan.
It is reported that this is the largest transaction in the history of Chinese real estate. After winning 77 Wanda hotels, R&F Properties is expected to become the No. 1 hotel giant in Asia and even the world. Li Silian, head of R&F Real Estate, said that through this cooperation, R&F will further expand the hotel business, increase the operating income of high-quality investment properties, and achieve a diversified industrial layout.
Sunac China won the 13th Wanda Cultural Tourism City, which can not only enter the cultural tourism real estate, but also obtain a large amount of land. Although this bone is not easy to gnaw, Sun Hongbin issued a vision: "Culture is poetry, tourism is far away". After Sunac took over 13 cultural tourism projects in Wanda, it established an independent cultural tourism group.
For Wanda Cultural Tourism City, Wang Jianlin once issued a "Disney rhetoric". It remains to be seen whether Sun Hongbin can persuade Sunac to fulfill Wang Jianlin's unfulfilled dream.
The four giants spent 34 billion yuan to enter Wanda Commerce
On January 29, 2018, a consortium jointly formed by Tencent, JD.com, Suning and Sunac invested 34 billion yuan to acquire a 14% stake in Wanda Commercial. Why do kings from different territories play the same game?
This store became popular in the WeChat circle of friends in early 2018. In the past few years, after establishing a strategic partnership with JD.com, Tencent has continued to attack the battlefield of e-commerce and new retail. This time, the two parties jointly invested in Wanda Commercial and increased their positions with victory. It also created a pattern in which China's second largest e-commerce company joined forces with China's largest entity enterprise.
Among the four majors, the most surprising is Suning. Some commentators believe that Suning's main purpose in taking a stake in Wanda Commercial may be to acquire the assets and resources of Wanda Commercial. In fact, as early as September 2015, Suning signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Wanda, agreeing to let Suning Tesco cloud store and other brands settle in Wanda Plaza. In January 2016, Suning successively opened Suning Tesco cloud stores in 16 Wanda commercial plazas across the country. To this end, Suning has spent tens of billions to participate in the privatization of Wanda Commerce, and its cooperation focus may still be the expansion of offline stores.
As far as Sunac is concerned, although in the real estate market, Sun Hongbin, like Wanda, has chosen a completely different path. While Wang Jianlin cuts debt and deleverages, Sun Hongbin steadily increases leverage to cope with the downturn. After spending 43.8 billion yuan to acquire 91% of Wanda's 13 cultural tourism projects, Sun Hongbin spent another 9.5 billion yuan to become a commercial shareholder of Wanda. In this regard, Sunac China said in a statement that this is not only a recognition of the long-term investment value of Wanda Commercial, but also allows Sunac and Wanda Commercial to have more space for cooperation in the field of commercial real estate, which is conducive to improvement. Its activities are related to commercial real estate projects. Integrate the level and ability of business resources.
After introducing these four giants as new strategic investors, Wanda Commercial was officially established as Wanda Commercial Management Group, aiming to establish a "new consumption" business model of enterprises that integrates online and offline services in China and pure business management and operation.
Wang does more than just sell real estate
In addition to real estate projects, Wang Jianlin has also made drastic changes in the entertainment field. On February 5, 2018, Alibaba invested 4.68 billion yuan and Wentou Holdings invested 3.12 billion yuan, becoming the second and third largest shareholders of Wanda Film.
Wanda's marriage to Alibaba is undoubtedly more interesting. This is Alibaba's second investment in private film companies after investing in Huayi, Guangguang and Bona. According to the agreement, the future cooperation between Wanda Film and Alibaba will include film distribution, film investment, online ticketing platform, advertising and promotion and sales of derivative products.
Behind the cold and simple words, the advantages and disadvantages of both sides are clear at a glance. Alibaba's investment in Wanda Film gives direct access to the high-quality resources of Wanda Cinemas, which is more important strategically than financially. For Wanda Film, the resource added effect brought by Ali gives the opportunity to redefine its own value: it is no longer a cinema in the traditional sense, but a life service entrance, and its carrier is a cinema. In other words, the emergence of Alibaba has made Wanda Movies truly the most valuable asset of the Wanda system.
Suning acquires 37 Wanda stores
Since 2019, Wang Jianlin has not stopped asset disposal. On January 8, Wanda transferred 900 million centennial life shares to Greentown China for RMB 2.7 billion. A month later, Wanda again sold its 37 stores to Suning.
For the third hand-in-hand between Zhang Jindong and Wang Jianlin, some insiders said that from a global perspective, the entire department store industry is facing great challenges in the Internet era. This means that Wanda has completely abandoned the department store business. Taking Suning as an example, the offline store business is relatively imperfect, which is undoubtedly not conducive to online and offline integration. Through the acquisition of Wanda store, Suning can obtain offline supply chain and store resources, and find effective solutions for new retail by integrating online traffic.
In the past two years, Wang Jianlin, who has been China's richest man for two consecutive years, has been firm and resolute in his disposal of wealth. This is not only the feeling of the richest man, but also Wanda's new round of positive monetization. According to Wanda's 2019 work report, at least 70% of Wanda Plaza, which opened in 2019, is asset-light operation. In this transformation trend, it is not difficult to understand that the wealth-filled Wanda Department Store has become an outcast.
For Wang Jianlin's "takeover man", playing with these sky-high assets not only requires funds, but also a huge test of operational ability.