In the last half month, Wang Jianlin moved to the rescue, and Wanda lifted the 30 billion "gambling" alarm
With only half a month left in the validity period of the Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management prospectus, Wang Jianlin finally found a rescuer.
On December 12, PAG (PAG) and Dalian Wanda Commercial Management Group jointly announced the signing of a new investment agreement. The agreement is to the effect that PAG will work with other investors to reinvest in Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management after redemption by Dalian Wanda Commercial Management Group at the expiration of its investment redemption period in 2021.
According to public information, PAG is an Asia-focused private equity investment company, whose business segments include private equity, real estate and credit and market investments, and the group has more than 300 investment staff who are located in 15 offices around the world, managing more than $55 billion in assets for nearly 300 institutional fund investors around the world.
In addition to PAG and existing investors, Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management will also bring in some new investors.
Another investor of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management said that the current investors of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management are indeed mostly foreign investors, but the current list of new investors has not been completely determined, and after Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management and the new investors have negotiated, it is expected that there will be a transitional stage in the withdrawal of the original war investment, and the process is relatively complicated, and the parties are currently discussing.
It has also been reported that new investments will no longer set up VAM agreements on listing issues. This means that the alarm hanging over Wanda's head has been lifted, but at the cost of dilution of Dalian Wanda's shareholding.
According to the latest version of the prospectus, Dalian Wanda Commercial Management directly holds about 69.99% of the total issued shares of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management, and indirectly owns about 8.84% of the total issued shares through Zhuhai Wanxin, Zhuhai Wanying and Yinchuan Wanda, and investors have a total of 21.15% of the equity of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management.
According to the new agreement, Dalian Wanda Commercial Management is the single largest shareholder with 40% of the shares, a decline of 29.99% based on the previous direct shareholding ratio, and several existing and new investors such as PAG participated in the investment, holding a total of 60% of the shares, an increase of 38.85% from the original shareholding ratio.
Wanda said that the company will work with PAG and other important shareholders to further optimize the company's corporate governance, maintain the stability of the management team, and jointly support the company's long-term development.
Shen Meng, director of Xiangsong Capital, told the International Financial News that reaching an agreement with investors is nothing more than the result of mutual compromise for the common good in the current market environment.
As for whether the follow-up will continue to promote the listing of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management, he said that the listing is the consensus of all parties and the basis for compromise, "investment institutions are not for equity, the purpose is to realize, so at present, the conditions are not harsh, but it does not mean that the listing and other goals are not needed."
Founded in September 2002, Dalian Wanda Commercial Management Group is the world's leading commercial property holding and operation enterprise, and Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management is the only business platform for the asset-light operation and management of the group's commercial centers. As of November this year, Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management operates and manages 494 large-scale commercial centers, of which 290 are commercial centers owned by Dalian Wanda and 204 are third-party asset-light commercial centers.
The signing of the new investment agreement dates back to 2021.
At that time, Wang Jianlin wanted to promote the listing of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management in Hong Kong, and in August of that year, he signed equity transfer agreements with 22 investors, including Zhuhai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, Tencent, Country Garden, CITIC, Ant Financial, and PAG, with a total investment of about 38 billion yuan, of which PAG's investment was about 2.8 billion US dollars (about 18 billion yuan).
Some of these investors have signed a VAM agreement with Dalian Wanda Commercial Management, and enjoy the right of redemption at maturity in the original investment arrangement, that is, Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management needs to complete the listing by the end of 2023, otherwise Dalian Wanda Commercial Management will have to pay investors an equity repurchase price of 8% annual internal rate of return, which is about 30 billion yuan.
The rest of the story is clear to the market.
From 2021 to 2023, Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management submitted a prospectus four times, but it has never obtained the "big road" to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. During this period, Dalian Wanda Commercial Management applied for the issuance of a small public offering bond with a scale of 6 billion yuan, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission later sent a letter of inquiry, and the above-mentioned 30 billion yuan of equity repurchase money was also exposed to the public eye.
Not long after, the issuance of this small public offering bond was pressed the "suspend button". At that time, Wanda's explanation was that Dalian Wanda Commercial Management voluntarily abandoned the issuance due to the market conditions not meeting expectations, but the suspension of the registration procedure for issuing corporate bonds would not have a significant impact on the company's liquidity in the short term, and it was not ruled out that it would resubmit the application for bond issuance in the future when conditions were met.
With the passage of time, Wanda's "money tightness" has become more and more obvious.
Since the beginning of this year, Wanda has successively put various non-core businesses such as Wanda Plaza, financial licenses, Infront Sports, and Wanda Film equity on the shelves to try to recover funds.
A few days ago, Wang Jianlin sold his "movie dream". According to the announcement of Wanda Film, the actual controller Wang Jianlin plans to transfer his total 51% stake in Beijing Wanda Investment, and the "receiver" is Shanghai Ruyi.
Prior to this, Wang Jianlin had transferred the equity of Wanda Film three times, with a total cash amount of more than 6.7 billion yuan, and had sold five Wanda Plazas, including Shanghai Songjiang Wanda Plaza and Guangxi Jiangmen Taishan Wanda Plaza.
In addition to the withdrawal of funds, Dalian Wanda Commercial Management has also recently completed the extension of a US dollar bond. It is reported that the US dollar bond was issued by the subsidiary Wanda Real Estate International Co., Ltd. in January 2014, with a scale of 600 million US dollars, a coupon rate of 7.25%, and a maturity of 10 years, that is, it should mature in January 2024.
Under the vortex of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management's listing, the payment of this bond has also become a problem. There has been news in the market that Dalian Wanda Commercial Management intends to extend the $600 million bond to December 29, 2024, and plans to repay it in four installments within one year, and the repayment comes from stable rental income and dividends from Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management, and does not involve the adjustment of other public bonds.
On November 30, Dalian Wanda Commercial Management announced that the $600 million bond adjustment repayment plan had been approved with the required number of votes and a quorum, with 99.3% of the investors participating in the vote. After the repayment of the US dollar bonds, Wanda will have two US dollar bonds of US$400 million each, due in 2025 and 2026 respectively.
Towards the end of the year, 69-year-old Wang Jianlin once again broke his wrist and successfully "went ashore", the last time he lost the hotel cultural tourism, this time it was film and business, compared to other bigwigs, Wang Jianlin still obtained the qualification to stay at the table.
Reporter Wu Dian
Edited by Sun Wanqiu
