As a well-known commercial real estate developer, Wanda Group's every move has attracted much attention, and the latest news came that Wang Jianlin sold all of Wanda's shares in Legendary Pictures in United States
Wang Jianlin emptied the stake in Legendary Pictures
On Oct. 14, Legendary Entertainment announced that it had completed the buyback of Dalian Wanda Group's remaining stake in the film company, which will be wholly owned by Apollo Global Management, but Legendary did not disclose financial details of the deal. Josh Grode, CEO of Legendary Pictures, said the move was an important step in the company's long-term growth plan. Apollo Global Management is one of the world's leading private equity fund managers, headquartered in the United States.
Wanda sold a minority stake in Legendary Pictures in 2022, when foreign media reported that Apollo Global Management agreed to pay $760 million to acquire a minority stake in Legendary Pictures.
Founded in 2000 by Thomas Tull, Legendary Pictures started as a film investment company and transformed into an independent production company in 2013.
Wang Jianlin invested $3.5 billion in shares eight years ago
Become a controlling shareholder
In January 2016, when Dalian Wanda Group was expanding its overseas footprint in the hope of becoming the "fifth in the world", it announced that it would buy Legendary Pictures for $3.5 billion and become the company's controlling shareholder, which was the largest cultural acquisition deal for a Chinese company overseas at the time.
At that time, Dalian Wanda Group said that it believed that Legendary Pictures would achieve profitability like the previously acquired AMC. Zeng Maojun, then president of Wanda Cinemas, also said that Wanda had experience in acquiring loss-making companies and turning them into profits.
In addition to the completion of the acquisition of Legendary Pictures, Dalian Wanda Group actively included it in the listing plan.
On May 12, 2016, Wanda Film announced that the company would acquire 100% of the shares of Wanda Film and Television, with a valuation of about 37.2 billion yuan, and Legendary Pictures is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wanda Film and Television, and the valuation is also calculated. But in the end, it was banned after being reviewed by regulators, and Wanda had to suspend the plan. As the listing plan was not implemented as scheduled, Oceanwide Holdings and Huace Film and Television, which had previously invested in the acquisition of Legendary Pictures, later sold their shares in Legendary Pictures to Wanda at a price of 1.44 billion yuan and 133.4 million yuan respectively.
On January 8, 2018, Wanda Film announced the acquisition of 100% equity of Wanda Film and Television at the investor briefing on major asset restructuring. Different from the restructuring plan in 2016, this restructuring "divested" Legendary Pictures, added a new media eslite subsidiary and a game subsidiary in its TV drama sector, and the valuation of Wanda Film and Television shrank from the original 37.5 billion yuan to 12 billion yuan.
Wang Jianlin later said that the reason for the restructuring plan to separate Legendary Pictures from the listing plan was that Legendary Pictures' performance in 2016 was not satisfactory, and it would plan to list Legendary Pictures separately in the future.
On January 17, 2017, Thomas Tull, founder, chairman and CEO of Legendary Pictures, announced his resignation. At the time, the United States media "Hollywood Reporter" reported that Thomas Toole's resignation was not voluntary, but under pressure from Wanda.
But then Dalian Wanda Group issued a statement saying that Thomas Toole's resignation was not due to the failure of "The Great Wall", and the personnel adjustment of Legendary Pictures was due to the larger layout of Wanda Films.
Wang Jianlin and others were sued by Yonghui Supermarket
Today, Dalian Wanda Group has changed from the previous "buy, buy, buy" model to "sell, sell, sell". In recent years, Wanda Group has sold its cultural tourism assets, Wanda Film equity and part of Wanda Plaza to protect cash flow.
Recently, Wanda Group was publicly collected by Yonghui Supermarket for failing to pay the equity transfer money of Yonghui Supermarket in a timely manner.
On October 13, Yonghui Supermarket announced that the company, as the claimant, had received a notice of acceptance of its arbitration application from the Shanghai International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission.
According to the announcement, Yonghui Supermarket requested that Dalian Yujin Trading Co., Ltd. immediately pay the remaining share transfer price of about RMB 3.639 billion to the company, as well as about RMB 218 million in liquidated damages for accelerated maturity. At the same time, it requested that Dalian Yujin immediately pay the company about RMB 2 million in lawyers' fees incurred in connection with this case. It is requested that Wang Jianlin, Sun Xishuang and Dalian Yifang Group Co., Ltd. be jointly and severally liable for the aforesaid remaining share transfer price, accelerated expiration liquidated damages and attorney fees totaling about 3.859 billion yuan. The respondent was requested to bear all the arbitration costs of the case.
Source: Nanfang Daily
Editor: Qing Zheng