Text/Leju Finance Lu Xiulun
A week after Wang Jianlin disclosed the prospectus, Wanda Commercial Management was hit by an unexpected stock freeze news.
On October 28, Wanda Commercial Management (full name "Dalian Wanda Commercial Management Group Co., Ltd.") added a new equity freezing information, and the amount of frozen equity rights and interests was 11.6 million yuan, and the freezing period was from October 28, 2021 to October 27, 2024.
The sudden share freeze was implicated by a shareholder named "Ding Mingshan".
History is always strikingly similar, on September 15 last year, Wanda Commercial Management 21.6 million yuan of equity was frozen, also because of the man called "Ding Mingshan", the freezing date was from September 15, 2020 to September 14, 2023.
Ding Mingshan, Wang Jianlin's old iron, a good partner in business. He, together with Sun Xishuang, chairman of Dalian Yifang, Lu Zhiqiang, chairman of Oceanwide Holdings, Shi Yuzhu, chairman of Giant Group, and others often followed Lao Wang to various public activities in his early years, and together formed a fixed and mysterious circle of friends of Wang Jianlin.
And he himself also has a heavy identity - the chairman of Huali Holding Group, involved in real estate, tourism, hotel chains, film and television culture and other industries. Ding Mingshan, who is low-key and mysterious, is mired in the quagmire because of the debt crisis in recent years, and the official website of Huali Holdings has been suspended for three years, and half of the subsidiaries have been cancelled.
At present, Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management has almost left the door to restart its listing in Hong Kong, but Ding Mingshan may not be able to catch up with the capital feast of China's largest commercial management giant.
"Lao Lai" Huali Holdings
Ding Mingshan's 0.58% equity interest in Wanda Commercial Management (subscribed capital of 21.6 million yuan) should be one of the most valuable assets under his name, and the equity corresponding to the 11.6 million yuan subscription amount of this part of the assets has been pledged to the Shanghai Luwan Branch of ICBC in July 2019.
This time, why was Ding Mingshan listed as an "executor" again? The court did not disclose the reasons for this.
However, according to Leju Finance, the total amount of executions by Ding Mingshan and Huali Holdings involved 418 million yuan. Therefore, his equity worth 11.6 million yuan in Wanda Commercial Management was frozen, which was only a drop in the bucket.
The reason for the freezing of the equity of Wanda Commercial Management last year was the application for preservation of the applicant 1 Limited Company: the application for the freezing of 0.58% of the equity of Ding Mingshan held by a certain 2 Limited Company, and the freezing of the shares of a certain 3 Limited Company, and the above-mentioned frozen assets were limited to 194 million yuan.
In addition to being frequently listed as an executor, Ding Mingshan himself has been listed as "restricted high consumption" 10 times, including Huarong Shengyuan, Zheshang Bank, Bank of Suzhou, Northeast Securities, Haitong Securities, CCB International, etc.
At the same time, a number of creditors have not waited for Huali Holdings' financial situation to return to normal, and have applied to the court for enforcement.
At the end of last year, Huali Holdings was listed by the court as a dishonest executor for partially failing to perform 155 million yuan of debts; at the beginning of February this year, a creditor applied to the court to enforce the debt of 28.53 million yuan against Huali Holdings; in the second half of the year, three creditors also applied to the court to enforce a total of about 584 million yuan of debts against Huali Holdings.
According to incomplete statistics, 2021 is the year in which Huali Holdings involved the most lawsuits after 2019, most of which are debt disputes.
All indications show that the capital crisis of Huali Holdings has gradually exploded from the end of 2018. At that time, Ding Mingshan and the bookmakers speculated on The Chinese blood products with high leverage - Shanghai Lex (002252.sz), resulting in no return and near bankruptcy.
The fall from the altar is also caused by Ding Mingshan's personality of playing with leverage and daring to borrow money to invest. In 2009, the asset-liability ratio of Huali Holdings was as high as 72.77%, with total assets of 4.394 billion yuan and net assets of 1.196 billion yuan; in that year, the company's operating income was 1.331 billion yuan and net profit was 121 million yuan.
In addition to the frozen shareholding of Wanda Commercial Management, what is left of Huali Holdings, which is known as tens of billions of assets?
Leju Finance and Economics learned that Ding Mingshan invested in a total of 32 enterprises through Huali Holdings, of which as many as 21 have been revoked and cancelled.
Under the name of her daughter Ding Fang, in addition to Hainan Jifuda (100%) associated with Huali Holdings, there are Also Shenzhen Poetic Culture and Tourism Co., Ltd. (51%) and Shenzhen Baitaijin Cultural Communication Co., Ltd. (12.38%).
From the real estate circle to the film and television circle
Ding Mingshan, a native of Hubei Province, started from the Yingcheng Municipal Materials Bureau and served as a clerk, chief economist, and general manager. In 1991, he came to Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and spent 9 years in Shenzhen Economic Cooperation and Development Corporation, from manager to general manager.
In 2000, with the help of the background of state-owned asset restructuring, Ding Mingshan went north, acquired the original Northwest Branch of China Automobile Trading Corporation, changed its name to China Huali Holding Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huali Holdings"), and became a real estate developer.
Huali Holdings has a registered capital of 1.8 billion yuan, and its shareholders are Hainan Jialite Industrial Investment Co., Ltd. (74.34%) and Hainan Jifuda Investment Co., Ltd. (25.66%). Penetrating it can be seen that the shareholder of Hainan Jialite is Ding Mingshan, and the shareholder of Hainan Jifuda is her female Ding Fen.
According to the official website of Huali Holdings, the company was involved in real estate at the beginning of its establishment, investing in the development of resort-type complex real estate, residential, hotel and other projects. According to Qingliu Studio, Ding Mingshan made his fortune in land scalping in his early years, mainly by taking land through relationships and then selling it to developers, and Wanda was its biggest partner.
For example, the developer of China Huali's early claim to be the Kunming Dianchi Acropolis project was Kunming Wanda Real Estate Co., Ltd. (now renamed Kunming Wanda Enterprise Management Consulting Co., Ltd.), which Wanda Real Estate transferred to Yunnan Hongtai Catering in 2019.
With his relationship with Wanda, Ding Mingshan has made hotels a key investment direction. Fashion Journey is a chain business hotel brand founded by Ding Mingshan, and its core competitiveness is that Huali Holdings has reached a strategic cooperation with Wanda Commercial, and in all commercial complexes of Wanda, Huali Holdings is responsible for operating business hotel chains.
Ding Mingshan once wanted to inject fashion tour hotels into Beijing tourism, but ultimately failed to achieve his wishes. In June 2013, Ding Mingshan sold the fashion tour to the 600754.sh for 300 million yuan, and he turned around and quit the hotel field.
At the same time, Ding Mingshan is also trying to shrink his real estate territory.
According to Leju Finance, the real estate operation platform of Huali Holdings is Huaying Land, which was established in 2001 with a registered capital of 210 million yuan, radiating Beijing, Hainan, Kunming and other places, and has operated Nanchang Fortune Plaza, Sanya Phoenix Water City and other projects.
Among them, Sanya Phoenix Water City, once the largest local resort real estate, was also famous for inviting film and television superstar Zhang Ziyi to endorse, which is also the only real estate project endorsed by the "International Chapter". But now, the shareholders of Sanya Phoenix Water City Development Company have changed, and they have nothing to do with Ding Mingshan in terms of equity.
During the period from 2015 to 2017, Huali Holdings transferred most of huaying land's subsidiaries; as of now, all 7 companies invested by Huaying Land have been revoked and cancelled.
Ding Mingshan, who quit the real estate circle, focused his career on the literary and artistic career and stepped into the film and television circle. He gave high hopes to Beijing Tourism (later renamed "Beijing Culture") subscribed by Huali Holdings. To this end, Ding Mingshan also found Song Ge.
The reason why Ding Mingshan found Song Ge, a big layer of relationship is Wang Jianlin. Song Ge joined Wanda Film and Television around 2011, served as the general manager, and successfully "bet on" "Seven Swords", "Very Perfect" and "33 Days of Lost Love", which was appreciated by the industry.
After the fierce general of "poaching" Song Ge, Beijing culture began to step out of the first chess piece of the film and television empire, and successively produced movies such as "Wolf Warrior 2", "The Wandering Earth", "I Am Not a Medicine God" and so on. Although the blockbuster movies continue, Beijing culture has never been able to win the trust of investors, and the huge loss of 2.45 billion yuan in 2019 has made the shareholders feel cold.
In February last year, Ding Mingshan and Huali Holdings sold their stake in Beijing Culture to cede the position of largest shareholder. At that time, the announcement showed that Huali Holdings intended to transfer 108.5 million shares of Beijing Culture directly held by it to Beijing Wenke Investment, accounting for 15.16% of the company's total share capital, and Beijing State-owned Assets would take over.
This step of "breaking the arm" is also a microcosm of the debt crisis of Ding Mingshan and Huali Holdings.
Wang Jianlin's old iron
Wang Jianlin has a group of friends who have good personal friends but are too low-key, and Ding Mingshan is one of them.
How iron is the relationship between the two? In the early days, wanda had something good, basically ding Mingshan participated in the figure, such as strategic investment in Wanda commercial real estate, strategic investment in Wanda film and television. According to media reports, Ding Mingshan even served as the deputy director of Wanda's investment decision-making committee.
Not only did he "benefit" a lot in Wanda, Ding Mingshan also brought a group of female stars.
Due to the long-term experience in the film and television circle, Ding Mingshan has also become recognized by the industry as the most popular real estate circle tycoon who likes to praise female stars, and his relationship with Zhang Ziyi, Li Bingbing and others is very close, taking them together to invest in Wanda Commercial Management and invest in Wanda Film and Television.
It is said that Zhang Ziyi and Ding Mingshan met in the first class of a flight and saw each other as they always were. Later, the real estate projects under Ding Mingshan Company frequently sought Zhang Ziyi's endorsement.
Before the listing of Wanda Commercial (the predecessor of Wanda Commercial Management), Li Zhuosheng, the mother of Zhang Ziyi, bought 18 million shares at a very low price, and the number of shares held even exceeded that of many Wanda vice president-level executives. In 2014, Wanda Commercial was listed in Hong Kong, and at that time, industry insiders had calculated that the shares would be worth about 1.6 billion.
After the listing, the market value was far less than expected, and it was privatized by Wang Jianlin in less than two years. At privatization prices, the stake is worth about $800 million.
But this is not the final chapter. In April 2016, Wanda Film and Television completed a round of capital increase and share expansion, and Ding Mingshan's shell was called "Tibet Huaxin Equity Investment Management Partnership (Limited Partnership)", which was very secretive and was a limited partnership fund.
Zhang Ziyi's brother Zhang Zinan and Li Bingbing's sister Li Xiuxiu (now known as Li Xue) each contributed 10 million yuan, are limited partners of the fund, and indirectly share the fruits of Wanda Film and Television's listing.
However, there are also rumors that after experiencing the entry of female stars and the "poaching" Song Ge incident, in fact, the relationship between Wang Jianlin and Ding Mingshan has also become very delicate.
At present, Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management is about to ring the gong of listing at the end of the year, with a total valuation of 180 billion yuan. But Ding Mingshan was frozen because of his equity, and he may not have the opportunity to share this listing feast. Earlier, another shareholder named Kui Yufeng was also exposed, and his 30 million shares of Wanda were also frozen.