Suning Yigou requests an arbitration ruling on Dalian Wanda Group Limited to pay Suning Yigou Group Limited and its subsidiaries a repurchase amount of 5 billion yuan. On the evening of October 22, Suning Yigou issued a statement announcing that the company’s arbitration request had been accepted. This news has attracted official attention.
The announcement indicated that in addition to requesting Dalian Wanda Group Limited to pay a repurchase amount of 5,040,598,551.33 yuan, Suning Yigou also requested Dalian Wanda Commercial Management Group Limited to assume joint liability for the above payment obligations of Wanda Group. The case has not yet been heard in court.
According to China Fund News, Wanda Commercial was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in December 2014. Shortly after the listing, Wang Jianlin believed that Wanda Commercial was undervalued. In September 2016, Wang Jianlin privatized Wanda Commercial and delisted it in preparation for listing on the A-share market.
On January 29, 2018, Dalian Wanda Group officially announced that Tencent, in collaboration with Suning Cloud Commerce, Sunac China, and JD.com, made a 34 billion yuan investment in Wanda Commercial, acquiring approximately 14% of the shares held by investors when Wanda Commercial delisted its H-shares in Hong Kong. Among them, Suning invested 9.5 billion yuan to acquire approximately 4.02% of Wanda Commercial’s equity.
Subsequently, Wanda Commercial was renamed Wanda Property Management Group, but the path to an A-share listing was not smooth. In March 2021, after waiting for several years, Wanda Property Management Group withdrew its A-share IPO application. At the same time, it reorganized its light asset-related resources and established Zhuhai Wanda Property Management at the end of March 2021, becoming the new entity aiming to list in Hong Kong.
However, in October 2021, April 2022, October 2022, and June 2023, Zhuhai Wanda Property Management submitted prospectuses to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange four times, all of which failed. In March this year, the listing gamble of Wanda Property Management failed, leading to Wang Jianlin losing absolute control over Wanda Property Management.
Wang Jianlin once held the title of China’s richest man. Due to the failure of Dalian Wanda Group to list in Hong Kong, Wang Jianlin found himself in a difficult situation due to the “gambling agreement.”
In recent years, Wang Jianlin has adopted a “sell, sell, sell” strategy. According to incomplete statistics, in the past two years, Wang Jianlin has sold at least 15 Wanda Plazas. Starting from last year, Wang Jianlin put Wanda Film, Wanda Hotels, and Wanda Plazas on the shelf one after another, and later sold the overseas yacht company, completely liquidating overseas assets.
Wanda’s debts remain heavy. Based on last year’s third-quarter financial report, Wanda’s total liabilities amounted to 303.36 billion yuan.
Among them, the total long-term interest-bearing debts were 124.56 billion yuan, non-current liabilities due within one year were approximately 66.2 billion yuan, while Wanda only had 13.269 billion yuan in cash.
On the evening of October 10, Yonghui Supermarket announced that as the buyer, Dalian Yujin Trading Co., Ltd. failed to pay the fourth installment of equity transfer funds to Dalian Wanda Commercial Management Group Limited within the agreed period. The company has sent a letter demanding immediate payment and will initiate arbitration proceedings against Dalian Yujin and guarantors such as Wang Jianlin to pursue legal responsibilities.
It was disclosed that in December last year, Yonghui Supermarket sold 3.89 billion shares of Wanda Property Management to Dalian Yujin for 4.53 billion yuan. In July this year, the payment method was adjusted, with the remaining 38.39 billion yuan in transfer funds divided into eight installments, with Wang Jianlin and others providing personal guarantees. The deadline for the fourth installment was September 30. As of now, Dalian Yujin has only paid the first three installments, with the outstanding amount exceeding 3.6 billion yuan.
Both the seller Yonghui Supermarket and the buyer Dalian Yujin, as well as the guarantor Wang Jianlin, are facing tough times.
From 2021 to 2023, Yonghui Supermarket suffered losses for three consecutive years, totaling over 8 billion yuan. Wang Jianlin also sold the controlling rights of Wanda Property Management in March this year, with the funds not coming through until September not long ago. Dalian Yujin’s controlling shareholder also became an executed person in April this year, with the execution amount exceeding 460 million yuan.