Dalian Wanda Group’s billionaire chairman, Wang Jianlin, has pledged his entire 65 percent stake in the Chinese conglomerate’s hotel division as collateral to secure a loan for another Wanda subsidiary from Singaporean state holding firm Temasek.
Companies controlled by Temasek extended a loan to Wanda Culture Holding after Wang put up the more than 3 billion shares he holds in Wanda Hotel Development as security, according to a Monday filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange.
No loan value or purpose was disclosed. Wanda Culture owns and operates the group’s film, sports, tourism and children’s entertainment ventures, including China’s largest cinema chain.
Wanda Hotel’s stock price has risen about 17 percent since last Thursday’s announcement that Wang had pledged his block of shares, which at current market value are worth HK$1.04 billion ($130 million).
Fundraising Mode
While the upside to the latest deal for Wanda remains unclear, the group has been actively fundraising.
Reuters reported last week that Wanda’s property services arm had raised $400 million from the issuance of a dollar bond, marking a milestone for China’s hard-hit property sector. The two-year bond carries an 11 percent coupon and was priced at a yield of 12.375 percent, according to a term sheet viewed by Reuters.
Moody’s Investors Service assigned a Ba3 rating to the senior unsecured bond and gave Wanda Properties Global a stable outlook, reflecting the firm’s support from Dalian Wanda Commercial Management Group.
“The proposed bond will lengthen DWCM and Wanda HK’s debt maturity profile and will not have a material impact on their credit metrics, since DWCM will use the proceeds mainly to refinance offshore debt,” said Moody’s analyst Alfred Hui.
Mall IPO Struggles
The latest funding round comes after Wanda’s shopping centre unit last October submitted a third prospectus for a Hong Kong initial public offering after two earlier applications had expired without seeing China’s largest commercial developer rejoin a stock exchange it left in 2016.
One year passed after Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management Group’s original application for what analysts predicted at the time could be a $3 billion IPO. The company’s second prospectus, submitted last April, lapsed on 24 October, according to information posted to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Wanda Commercial had reportedly passed a hearing by the exchange, but the company decided to hold off due to an ongoing downturn in Hong Kong-listed stocks, said China Business News, citing an analyst.
