cirr
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2012
- Messages
- 17,049
- Reaction score
- 18
- Country
- Location
Dalian Wanda, one of China's largest and most ambitious conglomerates, has snapped up two deals in the UK, investing £700m in a pair of new London skyscrapers and buying Sunseeker Yachts for £320m.
Wanda Chairman Wang Jianlin, third from left, toasts the deal with British Ambassador to China Sebastian Wood at a hotel in Beijing. Photo: AP
By Malcolm Moore, Beijing
8:10AM BST 19 Jun 2013
On a stage shaped like a yacht, Wanda's 59-year-old chairman Wang Jianlin was ably supported by a troop of dancers in glittering dresses as he underlined that a wave of Chinese money is about to hit the UK.
Describing how he had decided to buy Sunseeker, the UK's leading luxury yacht maker, Mr Wang casually said: "We wanted to buy 30 Sunseeker yachts because we are planning to build three marinas here in China. So then we thought it would be a better deal if we just bought the company".
For Wanda, which is China's largest property developer（my correction：largest privately owned commercial property developer in China）, with £26bn of assets and annual revenues of close to £15bn, the purchase of Sunseeker represents mere pocket change. The management of Sunseeker will retain 8.19pc of the equity under the deal.
Mr Wang, who founded the still privately held company in the late 1980s after serving in the People's Liberation Army, is reverentially known as the "King" of the Chinese property world.
Stewart McIntyre, the managing director of Sunseeker, said the company now plans to dramatically increase production, from 180 yachts a year at present to a potential 370 yachts a year, in order to meet Chinese demand. "This was a very very attractive proposition from Wanda," he said.
He promised that all of the company's operations in Poole, Dorset, where it currently employs around 2,300 people, would be safeguarded after the deal.
Meanwhile, Wanda has also bought the former Nine Elms site on the river Thames in Wandsworth from Green Property, the private developer chaired by Stephen Vernon. The site already has planning permission.
In an investment worth £700m, Wanda will build a 660ft-tall tower of luxury apartments (pictured above) and a 530ft-tall five-star hotel, the first high-end Chinese hotel overseas and a mirror set of skyscrapers to the Shard further along the South Bank.
Artists impression of the view from a 660ft-tall tower of apartments Wanda plans at Nine Elms.
Artists impression of the view from a 660ft-tall tower of apartments Wanda plans at Nine Elms.
Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, said he had worked "tirelessly" with Wanda to "secure this cracking deal".
The development is around the corner from the planned site of the new Chinese embassy and will be a magnet for rich Chinese tourists visiting London. "Please bring us a bit of your Chinese style, and some good Chinese food," said Sebastian Wood, the British ambassador in Beijing.
Mr Wang said he would go on to build eight to ten more similar projects in major cities around the world in order to tap the Chinese leisure market. Last year, Chinese travellers spent £65bn overseas, a 40pc jump from 2011.
"But we are going to do this overseas project steadily, not like in China where we built 16 hotels in a year," said Mr Wang.
The London project will also not have one of Wanda's trademark luxury shopping centres attached. Wanda operates 55 of its "Wanda Plazas" across China, which typically combine fashion boutiques, cinemas, giant karaoke saloons and five-star hotels.
Wanda is also the world's largest cinema operator after buying AMC, the US chain, for £1.7bn last year. There remain rumours that Mr Wang is targeting the Odeon chain in the UK, to which he merely said that his international department was "in talks over several projects".
This week has seen a total of £2bn of Chinese investment deals signed, after Xu Weiping formally announced his £1bn docklands office park on Monday.
China's Wanda buys Sunseeker Yachts and invests in London skyscrapers in £1bn UK deals - Telegraph
Wanda Chairman Wang Jianlin, third from left, toasts the deal with British Ambassador to China Sebastian Wood at a hotel in Beijing. Photo: AP
By Malcolm Moore, Beijing
8:10AM BST 19 Jun 2013
On a stage shaped like a yacht, Wanda's 59-year-old chairman Wang Jianlin was ably supported by a troop of dancers in glittering dresses as he underlined that a wave of Chinese money is about to hit the UK.
Describing how he had decided to buy Sunseeker, the UK's leading luxury yacht maker, Mr Wang casually said: "We wanted to buy 30 Sunseeker yachts because we are planning to build three marinas here in China. So then we thought it would be a better deal if we just bought the company".
For Wanda, which is China's largest property developer（my correction：largest privately owned commercial property developer in China）, with £26bn of assets and annual revenues of close to £15bn, the purchase of Sunseeker represents mere pocket change. The management of Sunseeker will retain 8.19pc of the equity under the deal.
Mr Wang, who founded the still privately held company in the late 1980s after serving in the People's Liberation Army, is reverentially known as the "King" of the Chinese property world.
Stewart McIntyre, the managing director of Sunseeker, said the company now plans to dramatically increase production, from 180 yachts a year at present to a potential 370 yachts a year, in order to meet Chinese demand. "This was a very very attractive proposition from Wanda," he said.
He promised that all of the company's operations in Poole, Dorset, where it currently employs around 2,300 people, would be safeguarded after the deal.
Meanwhile, Wanda has also bought the former Nine Elms site on the river Thames in Wandsworth from Green Property, the private developer chaired by Stephen Vernon. The site already has planning permission.
In an investment worth £700m, Wanda will build a 660ft-tall tower of luxury apartments (pictured above) and a 530ft-tall five-star hotel, the first high-end Chinese hotel overseas and a mirror set of skyscrapers to the Shard further along the South Bank.
Artists impression of the view from a 660ft-tall tower of apartments Wanda plans at Nine Elms.
Artists impression of the view from a 660ft-tall tower of apartments Wanda plans at Nine Elms.
Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, said he had worked "tirelessly" with Wanda to "secure this cracking deal".
The development is around the corner from the planned site of the new Chinese embassy and will be a magnet for rich Chinese tourists visiting London. "Please bring us a bit of your Chinese style, and some good Chinese food," said Sebastian Wood, the British ambassador in Beijing.
Mr Wang said he would go on to build eight to ten more similar projects in major cities around the world in order to tap the Chinese leisure market. Last year, Chinese travellers spent £65bn overseas, a 40pc jump from 2011.
"But we are going to do this overseas project steadily, not like in China where we built 16 hotels in a year," said Mr Wang.
The London project will also not have one of Wanda's trademark luxury shopping centres attached. Wanda operates 55 of its "Wanda Plazas" across China, which typically combine fashion boutiques, cinemas, giant karaoke saloons and five-star hotels.
Wanda is also the world's largest cinema operator after buying AMC, the US chain, for £1.7bn last year. There remain rumours that Mr Wang is targeting the Odeon chain in the UK, to which he merely said that his international department was "in talks over several projects".
This week has seen a total of £2bn of Chinese investment deals signed, after Xu Weiping formally announced his £1bn docklands office park on Monday.
China's Wanda buys Sunseeker Yachts and invests in London skyscrapers in £1bn UK deals - Telegraph
