Wanda close to selling two luxury assets in Australia

BEIJING－Wanda Hotel Development Co has corrected a statement that last week appeared to contradict an English-language version of an announcement by the unit of billionaire Wang Jianlin's entertainment conglomerate.

The Chinese-language announcement, which referred to a pending acquisition, was mistaken and should have referred to a "very substantial disposal," the hotel unit said in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing Monday, citing a translation error. The announcement was made to explain why trading in shares of the company was halted.

Dalian Wanda Group, facing intensified regulatory scrutiny over what authorities called "irrational" overseas investments, is close to reaching an agreement to sell two Australian luxury property projects－one in Sydney and another in Gold Coast, according to people familiar with the matter. Wanda said last week it had agreed to sell its interests in the London luxury development project, One Nine Elms, for $81 million.

Wang, Wanda's chairman, has been pruning his empire and exiting planned deals after years of paying up for film studios and exhibitors while building theme parks and luxury hotels in a bid to overtake Walt Disney Co as the world's largest entertainment company.

Dalian Wanda Group's revenue fell by 10.8 percent in 2017, the second consecutive year it declined.

It reported 227.4 billion yuan ($35.54 billion) in revenue for last year, while net profit remained flat compared with 2016, according to a statement posted on the company's website on Saturday. The statement did not reveal the profit figure.

Total assets, of which 93 percent are domestic, declined 11.5 percent to 700 billion yuan.

Wang said on Saturday that Wanda had greatly reduced its debt and would use its "limited cash" in developing Wanda Plazas, the group's core business.

"Wanda invested in a few projects overseas in the past few years and now we have decided to clear all overseas debt," Wang said in a speech at the group's annual meeting, which was published on its website on Sunday.

Wanda's commercial real estate arm, which sold a portfolio of hotels and 13 tourism assets in China for $9 billion in July, saw income fall 21 percent last year to 112.5 billion yuan.

Revenue at its sports division increased by 12.3 percent to 7.2 billion yuan, while that of the cultural division rose 32.6 percent to 63.8 billion yuan.

Wanda is considering a listing for its sports assets as part of efforts to rationalize its portfolio, according to people familiar with the situation.

For 2018, Dalian Wanda has set a revenue target of 247.9 billion yuan, with around half coming from the commercial real estate arm, according to Wang.

The chairman also pledged to reduce Wanda's corporate debt through all available means, including the sale of non-core assets and minority stakes of the businesses it controls.

The group plans to lower corporate debt to the "absolute safe" level in two to three years, he added.

Agencies