In China, with the economy in a downturn, the trend of “state-owned enterprises advancing, private enterprises retreating” is becoming more pronounced. Many Chinese private real estate enterprises, once thriving, have been gradually caught in crisis. Wanda Group, well-known for its commercial real estate, is now undergoing large-scale asset sales and being scooped up by state-owned enterprises. Wanda’s founder, Wang Jianlin, recently had over 77 million shares frozen, drawing market attention.
On February 13, the topic of “Wang Jianlin’s 77.02 million yuan frozen shares” made it to the top of the hot search list in mainland China.
According to reports from mainland media, on February 13, Dalian Heoxing Investment Co., Ltd. added a new share freeze notice, with Wang Jianlin being the debtor, involving frozen shares worth 77.02 million yuan. This share freeze was executed by the Xigang District Court of Dalian, with a period from February 11, 2025, to February 10, 2027.
Established in April 2007, Dalian Heoxing Investment Co., Ltd. has a registered capital of 78.6 million yuan, with Wang Jianlin as its legal representative. The company’s business scope includes project investment, investment consulting management, and economic information consulting. In terms of share ownership, Wang Jianlin holds 98%, while his son, Wang Sicong, owns 2%.
Wanda Group, founded by Wang Jianlin in the 1980s, is headquartered in Beijing and operates in sectors such as commercial management, culture, real estate, and investments. Wanda initially rose to prominence with real estate projects involving old buildings’ transformation and later became renowned for developing commercial real estate. In 2017, Wanda Group ranked 380th on the Fortune Global 500 list. However, in 2023, Wanda Group faced a debt crisis. On July 21 of that year, Dalian Wanda Commercial Management Company, Dalian Wanda Group, and Huzhou Wanda Investment were added with an execution debtor information, with an execution target of about 300 million yuan, and the executing court was the Intermediate People’s Court of Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province.
To repay debts, Wanda promptly began selling its cultural tourism assets, Wanda film equity, and dozens of Wanda Plazas. Data shows that starting from 2023, Wang Jianlin has sold over 30 Wanda Plazas to address the debts.
In the early months of 2025, Wanda Group sold five Wanda Plazas in Anhui, Shanxi, Henan, Jilin, and Jiangsu provinces. The buyer was Kunhua Equity Investment, controlled by New China Life Insurance Company Limited.
Established in September 1996, New China Life Insurance is a state-owned listed life insurance company and a central enterprise directly supervised by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council of China.
“Daily Economic News” reported that in just over a year, Kunhua Equity Investment had made 14 external investments in Wanda Plaza-related assets. Essentially, New China Life Insurance has taken over 14 Wanda Plazas.
Previously, on February 5, 2025, Dalian Wanda Group Co., Ltd. added information on a frozen share, with the executing enterprise being Zhuhai Hengqin Wenchixi Enterprise Management Partnership Enterprise (Limited Partnership), with over 810 million yuan of shares frozen. The freeze period is from January 27, 2025, to January 26, 2028.
It is reported that Wanda has had its assets frozen multiple times due to financial disputes, with accumulated frozen funds nearing 6 billion yuan. In 2024, former partners like Yonghui Superstores, Suning.com, and Sunac China initiated arbitrations against Wanda due to stock buyback disputes, involving an amount exceeding 18 billion yuan.
Wanda Commercial Management Group Co., Ltd. (Wanda Commercial Management) financial reports indicate that as of the first three quarters of 2024, the company’s operating income was 39.926 billion yuan, operating profit was 12.876 billion yuan, and net profit was 9.779 billion yuan. However, as of September 30, 2024, Wanda Commercial Management had accounts payable of about 10.973 billion yuan, approximately 40.084 billion yuan of non-current liabilities maturing within a year, around 38.89 billion yuan in short-term borrowings, about 1.064 trillion yuan in long-term borrowings, approximately 6.191 billion yuan in bonds payable, totaling around 299.03 billion yuan in liabilities.
On February 10 this year, Wanda Commercial Management underwent significant personnel changes. According to their announcement, the CEO Zhang Lin “resigned for personal reasons,” with the current chairman, Zhang Chunyuan, taking over. Prior to this change, the former chairman of Wanda Commercial Management, Qi Jie, resigned in March 2023; subsequently, in October of the same year, his successor, Xiao Guangrui, stepped down, with Zhang Chunyuan assuming the position of chairman and legal representative, while Fang Lishuang and Zhang Qing became supervisors.
In China’s prosperous economic times, private real estate developers once generated massive wealth. However, in recent years, many of these real estate companies have faced closures. Companies like Evergrande, Country Garden, and Sunac China have all encountered crises, with even Vanke, regarded as a benchmark in China’s real estate sector, facing a liquidity crisis.
Though Vanke is usually classified as a private enterprise, China Resources Group, a state-owned enterprise, is its largest shareholder, with Vanke claiming to be a mixed-ownership enterprise.
Vanke recently underwent major changes in its top management, with the new leadership having strong ties to state-owned enterprises in Shenzhen. Official media outlets in China have referred to the company’s outward restructuring as “state-owned enterprise transformation.”
On the evening of February 10, Vanke disclosed in a statement its plan for a loan of up to 2.8 billion yuan from Shenzhen Metro Group. It is reported that this loan would be specifically used by Vanke to repay its maturing public debts.
On February 3, The Wall Street Journal reported that with private and local developers encountering difficulties, China’s real estate industry is increasingly dominated by state-owned enterprises, marking a striking reversal of the past trends.