DALIAN: Chinese property developer Dalian Wanda Group says it can afford to spend as much as $5bn every year to buy foreign firms or assets, underscoring the rising clout of the firm as it expands abroad, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
Just weeks after completing its buy-out of British yacht maker Sunseeker International Ltd, Chairman, Wang Jianlin says that he’s prepared to spend even more than $5bn in a single acquisition if the right opportunity arises.
Wang, ranked as China’s richest man by Forbes this week, said the company will continue to focus on the hospitality and entertainment industries.
“Every year we should have around a few billion United States dollars,” said Wang, who was speaking in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economico Forum in Dalian, northern China.
Wanda Group, a privately-held conglomerate that operates businesses ranging from hotels and shopping malls to cinemas, has expanded rapidly outside China in recent years.
In June, Wang told Reuters that he planned to invest about $1bn to build a five-star hotel in New York and that he wanted to build Wanda hotels in eight to 10 cities outside China over the next decade in an effort to increase the company’s global presence.
The New York announcement followed a £1bn ($1.57bn) British investment that included the acquisition of Sunseeker, Britain’s largest luxury yacht maker by sales, and the construction of a 160-room Wanda hotel and apartment building in London.
Wanda made its first international foray last year, buying US cinema chain AMC Entertainment for $2.6bn.
The company announced on Wednesday that it would hold opening ceremonies for its new 30 billion yuan ($4.90bn) film studio in the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao later this month.
China’s overseas investments totaled $87.8bn in 2012, up 17.6 per cent from 2011, making it the world’s third-largest investor behind the US and Japan, according to a report jointly released by China’s Ministry of Commerce, the National Bureau of Statistics, and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
Concerns that Chinese investments overseas are hindered by rising regulatory scrutiny are also unfounded, Wang said, blaming “sensational media reports” for stirring undue worries.