Wang Jianlin: Sorrow goes and sorrow comes again

| Outside the mountains, sorrowful, over the hills, and mountains, will the once richest man in China really become nothing like the title of the song he sang?

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Shang Xiaobin

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Huaxiang Famous Finance Agency

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On November 2, 2016, The Hollywood Reporter, founded in 1930, ushered in its first cover featuring Chinese characters in its more than 80-year history.

On the cover, Wang Jianlin clasped his hands to his chest with a serious expression, looking in the direction outside the camera. In the lower right corner of the cover, the words "The Chairman" are written. The word Chairman can be translated as chairman or as chairman. But no matter what kind of translation it is, it represents power.

The arrogant Hollywood press maintained "awe" for this wealthy man from the East, but it was also full of ridicule. Just because the first sentence of the report says that Wang Jianlin, the richest man in China, usually doesn't go to the movies.

Seven years later, on December 6, 2023, Wang Jianlin, who is "arrogant" in the eyes of the New York Times, will finally take off the "last jewel in the crown".

——On December 6, Wanda Film announced that Wang Jianlin, the actual controller, intends to transfer 51% of the shares of its controlling shareholder, Beijing Wanda Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Wanda Investment"), to Shanghai Ruyi Investment Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Ruyi Investment"). ①

Wanda Movies will no longer be surnamed "Wang"!  

At noon on December 6, Wanda Film announced that Wang Jianlin, the actual controller of the company, intends to transfer his total 51% stake in Beijing Wanda Investment to Shanghai Ruyi Investment Management Co., Ltd.

The few words in the announcement quickly shocked everyone, "If the above matters are finally implemented, it will lead to a change of control of the company." ”

On July 10, 2023, Wanda invested and transferred its 180 million shares in Wanda Film to Lu Lili, the "boss" of Oriental Wealth, for a total transfer price of about 2.173 billion yuan;(2)

On July 18, Wanda Investment once again transferred 177 million shares of Wanda Film's unrestricted tradable shares to Shen County Rongzhi Xingye Management Consulting Center (Limited Partnership), with a total transfer price of about 2.336 billion yuan;

Coupled with the sale of the remaining 51% equity of Wanda Investment, Wang Jianlin will completely empty the Wanda Cultural Industry founded by him, which is worth about 5.426 billion yuan.

……

In this operation, Wang Jianlin can get a key "life extension money"!

Five years ago, Zeng Maojun, then president of Wanda Film, single-handedly promoted the merger and reorganization of Wanda Film and Wanda Film, and confidently said that he would make the industry bigger.

But unfortunately, since 2020, the film and television industry has suffered setbacks one after another, Wanda Films has invested heavily in works that have rarely returned, and the operation of offline theaters has repeatedly lost money.

"Lao Wang is very disappointed in this business", "There are already plans to give up the field of film internally" - Wanda is like Cao Mengde's "chicken ribs", which is tasteless and a pity to abandon it    

Following the packaged sale of cultural tourism and hotel business 6 years ago, Wanda is the "Wanda Pearl" of the film and television industry, but it still can't fill this hole.

At the same time, Lao Wang is also peddling Wanda's "basic plate" - Wanda Commercial to save emergencies.

……

At the end of May 2023, Wanda will sell its three shopping malls: Shanghai Songjiang Wanda, Xining Haihu Wanda and Jiangmen Taishan Wanda;

At the end of September, Wanda transferred its Guangxi Beihai Hepu Wanda Plaza to Hepu Wanghe Real Estate, a local real estate company in Beihai;

In October, Wanda withdrew from the list of shareholders of Shanghai Wanda Plaza Real Estate Co., Ltd. (the main asset is Zhoupu Wanda Plaza);

Wanda Films can be regarded as Wang Jianlin's "high-quality assets".

According to the data of Wanda Film's third quarterly report, in the first three quarters of this year, Wanda Film's operating income was about 11.347 billion yuan, an increase of 46.98% year-on-year, and the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was about 1.114 billion yuan.

From January to September 2023, the company's domestic theaters achieved a box office of 6.22 billion yuan (excluding service fees), a year-on-year increase of 67.6% and an increase of 5.2% over the same period in 2019, and 150 million moviegoers, a year-on-year increase of 68.7% and an increase of 3.7% over the same period in 2019. ③

Wanda Commercial is Wang Jianlin's "core asset".

Some industry insiders said that the downward cycle of the real estate industry continues to ferment, and many insuring real estate companies are constantly selling off their assets, and recently central state-owned enterprises such as OCT have joined it. The "shelves" have long been full of residential, commercial, cultural tourism and other heavy asset projects, and the market is extremely unfavorable to sellers.    

In the face of this situation, Wang Jianlin is still desperate to sell "core assets" and cash out "gold", which shows that the situation of Wanda is now critical.

The root cause of Wanda's current embarrassment comes from a huge VAM agreement signed by Mr. Wang with investors in 2017.

The content of the agreement - Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management must complete the listing by the end of 2023 at the latest, otherwise Wanda will not only have to redeem 30 billion, but also pay 12% interest. ④

In 2016, in order to obtain more fundraising, Wanda was delisted from the Hong Kong stock market through privatization, in order to achieve the purpose of listing on the A-share market.

After selling assets in 2017 to alleviate the financial conflict, Wanda gradually established a new business segment with commercial management as the core, once again opened the "unfulfilled long-cherished wish", signed VAM agreements with 22 institutional investors, and pinned Wang Jianlin's hopes on Zhuhai Commercial Management to hit the IPO.

With the strength and market of Zhuhai Commercial Management at that time, the listing journey was not dark, but had a bright future. But who would have thought that Wanda Commercial Management would be blocked from the door of Hong Kong stocks for five years.

In particular, the sudden epidemic has caused a relatively large impact and impact on Wanda's business business, the house leak coincided with overnight rain, and the stock market continued to be sluggish, so the pace of listing of Zhuhai Commercial Management stagnated.

In March 2021, under the difficulties of domestic and foreign affairs, Zhuhai Commercial Management has never entered the threshold of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and Wanda has no choice but to withdraw its listing application.

Seeing that the New Year's bell of 2024 is about to ring, how Wang Jianlin deals with the VAM agreement of more than 300 small targets has once again become a test of life and death.

Signing a VAM agreement with an institutional investor is a common method used by many enterprises and is also a common method used by listed companies.

However, VAM agreements are a "double-edged sword", and in the case of improper use, some companies will be in trouble, and it will be as difficult as Wanda is now.

At present, Wanda's 30 billion VAM agreement is expiring, or it will repurchase the equity as promised, and it will be more difficult for Zhuhai Commercial Management, which is under huge financial pressure, to go public.

Judging from the current actual situation, the overall situation of the stock market is still sluggish, and the confidence of institutional investors cannot be boosted.

And in the first half of this year, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange raised a number of questions about the materials submitted by Wanda, one of which was that the capital transactions between Zhuhai Wanda and Dalian Wanda were unknown, and it pointed out that Wanda was paying large dividends on the one hand, but on the other hand, it was a contradictory practice of huge financing.

On the one hand, the stock market has been unfavorable for many years, hitting the confidence of investment institutions and investors, and on the other hand, Wanda Zhuhai Commercial Management is unfavorable for listing, encountering "inquiries" and "breaking the ice" for listing.

Moreover, most institutional investors are not very interested in extending the VAM agreement until 2026. Although Wang Jianlin is sacrificing his life to save the city, it is not as bad as Xu Jiayin and other thunderstorms, but the risk of three years is still unknown.

For Wanda, not extending the project will also face great risks for the company, and it will even bring the company into the quagmire of broken capital chain and the abyss of serious dishonesty in market credit.    

This also means that in the coming period, Wanda will face a relatively severe postponement of the listing situation and strong pressure to communicate with institutional investors.

It is no wonder that Wang Jianlin began to peddle "core assets" in order to protect himself.

A good sign is –

Wanda Commercial Management's US$600 million bond extension plan was approved by bondholders on November 30, with a 99.3% support ratio among investors.

According to the current asset quality of Zhuhai Commercial Management, it is still worth looking forward to. As for when the last hurdle will be crossed, we will wait and see.

Wang Jianlin has always been an "alternative" in China's real estate industry.

Evergrande and other real estate giants are all foreign-owned, but Wanda is different, among the many giants in the real estate industry, Wang Jianlin is a unique entrepreneur.

The real estate industry has been in turmoil over the past few years, with many giants falling. In this field, there are not many entrepreneurs who are truly responsible.

Wang Jianlin is one of the few people who can be called truly responsible.

Although many people do not agree with this statement and even belittle Wang Jianlin, there is a fact that many people do not know - many real estate giants have transferred large amounts of money overseas.

Evergrande owes more than 2 trillion debts and is completely thunderous, and Xu Jiayin is trying to "get out of the shell" and transfer assets to leave wealth to future generations.

The reason why Xu Jiayin was arrested is enough to show the seriousness of the nature of his case, and the amount of money involved is huge.

Including: 664.3 billion yuan disappeared from the financial report in the first half of 2023, 13.4 billion yuan was misappropriated by Evergrande property, and 40 billion yuan of Evergrande wealth thunder. ⑤

Many of the biggest players in the real estate industry use overseas structures to move capital to overseas markets – this structure exists mainly to invest in overseas markets, but also to smoothly move Chinese capital abroad.

Real estate companies such as Evergrande, Country Garden, Sunac, and SOHO China have all adopted this overseas structure. By registering offshore companies abroad and centralizing the equity in the hands of offshore companies, these companies become foreign-owned companies.

……

Xu Jiayin and his divorced wife, Ding Yumei, each have a 100% controlling offshore company in the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands;

Country Garden Holdings Co., Ltd., the listed entity of Country Garden, is registered in the Cayman Islands, and Yang Huiyan withdrew from the position of chairman of Country Garden's subsidiaries in the middle of the year, and she herself also obtained Cypriot nationality;

Sun Hongbin, chairman of Sunac China, transferred Sunac equity with a market value of about US$4.5 billion to an offshore family trust fund, and he himself is a U.S. citizen;

……

According to media reports, since 2018, more and more Chinese private entrepreneurs have set up and injected assets into offshore family trusts.

In just one year, more than 15 mainland private enterprises listed in Hong Kong have arranged their respective equity interests through offshore family trusts, and the market value of the shares controlled by the relevant trust plans is close to HK$240 billion.

With the help of this structure, these real estate giants can easily list in Hong Kong and pay dividends, so as to achieve the free flow of funds.

In any case, Wang Jianlin is really a Chinese entrepreneur!

At Wanda, Mr. Wang took a different approach from other real estate giants, bringing traditional Chinese entrepreneurial style and values to the management of the business.

He resolutely excludes the interests of relatives and corruption, has very strict requirements for employees, and has zero tolerance for punishment for corruption.

At the same time, he insisted on not allowing his relatives to work in the company, let alone allowing his relatives to seek personal interests in the company, taking Wang Sicong as an example.

This kind of conscientious entrepreneur practice is very rare in China, because many real estate giants are seeking their own self-interest and maximizing profits.

Real estate giants such as Xu Jiayin, Sun Hongbin, Yang Huiyan and so on are basically inherited from their fathers, and their families control the "lifeblood" of the entire enterprise.

Finally, for the development of the real estate industry, it is very important to be a real responsible entrepreneur.

At present, many giants in the real estate industry are facing huge debts, hovering on the edge of thunderstorms, Xu Jiayin was arrested for transferring assets overseas; Yang Huiyan stepped down as chairman of Country Garden and transferred equity, a posture of "flying separately when the disaster comes"...

Only Wang Jianlin took on the responsibility of being a Chinese entrepreneur, breaking his arms to survive and selling off assets in an attempt to save the Wanda Group, which was on the verge of bankruptcy.    

"After years of business war, wealth has always been in vain.

This is a poem written by Wang Jianlin many years ago.

Now, Wang Jianlin has led Wanda through 35 years of ups and downs, and successfully stepped through 17 years of life and death.

With less than 20 days to go until 2024, Wang Jianlin and Wanda, who are facing a VAM agreement of more than 30 billion yuan, are "bankrupt" on the left, but there is only an unknown road showing a ray of light on the right.

The pioneering work of Chinese rock music "Nothing", the lyrics of the sad taste of wanting to talk about rest, have been covered by Wang Jianlin, the richest man in China, and have been fans of many Wanda employees.

Now, on social platforms, a netizen familiar with Wanda wrote, "Recently, I have been listening to Wang Jianlin's "Nothing", many people think that Mr. Wang sings this song is funny, what I hear is a person who is lonely and walking his own way, no one walks with him, he hopes that someone will walk with him, but no one understands." ”

Beyond the hills, there are still high mountains, mountains outside the mountains, sorrowful and sorrowful, will the once richest man in China really become nothing?!

(1):2023.12.07, National Business Daily, "Leaving Wang Jianlin, Wanda Film Will Throw Into the Arms of "Confucianism""

(2): 2023.12.06, Securities Times, "Wanda Films Change Hands! Wang Jianlin "Let Go", the Company Is No Longer Surnamed "Wang"..."    

(3): 2023.10.30, The Paper, "Wanda Film: Net profit attributable to the parent company in the first three quarters exceeded 1.1 billion yuan, and the box office was 6.22 billion yuan"

(4): 2023.10.07, City Observation, "The Strong Man Wang Jianlin Broke His Wrist Again"

(5): 2023.11.28, Blue Whale Finance, "13.4 Billion Funds Misappropriated! Evergrande Property Sues Evergrande Group in Court"

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