Wanda sold 48 plazas in one package — the IPO bet's final bill

On May 6, 2025, China's antitrust regulator unconditionally approved the largest single property disposal in recent history: a consortium led by PAG and including Gaohe Fengde, Tencent, JD's Panda commercial arm and Sunshine Life bought 48 Wanda Plazas across 39 cities — around ¥50 billion by market estimates. The batch includes cities' first-ever Wandas, like Fuzhou Financial Street and Urumqi Economic Development Zone. Closing was set for the second half of 2025; ownership transfers completely, while Wanda's management unit stays on to run the malls for fees.

The fire had been burning since 2023. As of September 2024, Dalian Wanda Commercial Management carried ¥43.97 billion of short-term debt and ¥172.53 billion of interest-bearing debt in total, against mall rental income that could not keep pace. Wang Jianlin sold more than 40 plazas from 2023 on; in the first two months of 2025 alone, seven more went; insurers including Sunshine Life and New China Life had quietly accumulated nearly 20. In April 2025 Wanda also agreed to sell its entire hotel-management business to Tongcheng Travel for ¥2.497 billion.

The root was the IPO wager. After the listing that Wanda's commercial arm had been promised failed to materialize, a PAG-led consortium — with CC Capital, Ares funds and an Abu Dhabi Investment Authority unit — put ¥60 billion into Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management in March 2024 and took control. Wanda's stake in the restructured vehicle, Dalian Xinda Meng, has since been diluted to 12.34%. Now the same familiar faces own the plazas themselves: roughly 90 Wanda Plazas nationwide have changed hands. The asset-light operator model Wanda once marketed as strategy became necessity.