Wanda sells high-profile London asset

Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group has agreed to sell its interests in the high-profile luxury London development One Nine Elms, for 59 million pounds ($81 million).

The sale is Wanda's latest move to reduce debts that resulted from its aggressive expansion at home and abroad.

Wanda, which operates a diverse range of businesses in areas including real estate, soccer, and cinemas, bought the plot of land for the One Nine Elms development for 88.8 million pounds in 2013.

One Nine Elms is currently under construction.

Wanda has not revealed the identity of the buyer but Bloomberg quotes unnamed sources as saying Guangzhou R&F Properties Co is the buyer. R&F has declined to comment.

Last August, R&F bought 77 hotels from Dalian Wanda for $3 billion, and in the same month Wanda pulled out of a deal to buy a plot of land near One Nine Elms. That plot was later snapped up by R&F Properties and by China's CC Land, the company that last year bought London's high-rise office building known as The Cheesegrater.

In addition to paying Wanda 59 million pounds for One Nine Elms, the buyer also agreed to repay a 159.5-million-pound loan attached to the property.

Wanda's efforts to reduce its debts came after China's banking regulator criticized the company in June for a spending spree that saw it buy billions-of-dollars-worth of overseas assets and accumulate large debts on a range of other major projects in China.

Wanda Chairman Wang Jianlin said in an interview with the Beijing-based media group Caixin that he wished to repay most of his company's bank loans by the end of 2017. He said proceeds from the One Nine Elms deal would be used for this purpose.