Home Business China’s Wanda Group Buys U.S. Filmmaker Legendary for $3.5bn

China’s Wanda Group Buys U.S. Filmmaker Legendary for $3.5bn

by AFP
Fred Dufour—AFP

Fred Dufour—AFP

Head of Chinese conglomerate says his purchase has nothing to do with increasing Beijing’s cultural influence.

Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group signed a deal in Beijing on Tuesday to buy U.S. film studio Legendary Entertainment, the maker of blockbusters Jurassic World and Godzilla, for $3.5 billion.

The agreement was “China’s largest cross-border cultural acquisition to date,” said the Chinese firm, which is headed by the country’s richest man Wang Jianlin.

“American movie companies have the commanding heights of the movie industry in the world,” Wang told reporters at the signing ceremony, adding the acquisition will “change this situation.”

“I believe it’s a miracle for a Chinese company to acquire such a big and heavy American company,” Wang added. But he denied that the deal, which comes weeks after Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba bought Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper, was intended to increase Beijing’s cultural influence.

“Government soft power belongs to another sphere,” he said at the briefing, where he and Legendary chairman and CEO Thomas Tull watched lawyers sign the agreement. “I mainly focus on business interests.”

Legendary’s film productions have grossed more than $12 billion worldwide at the box office, according to a Wanda statement. The company’s projects, which have also included Pacific Rim and the latest Batman trilogy—are mostly the big-budget action spectaculars popular with Chinese audiences.

Wanda, founded by Wang, has its origins in commercial property but is diversifying into areas ranging from entertainment to e-commerce as the world’s second-largest economy matures and growth slows.

The Legendary deal is the latest in a string of overseas acquisitions by the firm, including the organizer of Ironman extreme endurance contests and Swiss sports marketing group Infront, while it also has a stake in Spanish football club Atletico Madrid.

Wang burst into the international spotlight in 2012 by buying U.S. cinema chain AMC Entertainment for $2.6 billion and his company owns more than 200 malls, shopping complexes and luxury hotels across China.

The son of a Communist Red Army captain, Wang was a soldier before he founded Wanda in the 1980s, building it up with military discipline. Now 61, Wang is the 15th richest man on the planet according to Bloomberg’s real-time ranking, which put his net worth at $31 billion on Monday.

In October, Wang confirmed that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s brother-in-law owned shares in one of the business mogul’s firms, after allegations that political connections helped Wanda Group continued to surface.

The conglomerate said this week that its revenue surged nearly 20 percent in 2015, despite worsening economic conditions in its home market.

Tull, the founder of Legendary, will continue in his posts after the purchase, Wanda said in a statement. “We made a decision many years ago that was China was going to be the future,” Tull told reporters.

Only 34 foreign films are given cinema releases in China each year under a quota set by Beijing, but Wang indicated that as Chinese co-productions Legendary movies would be exempt. All movies in the country are subject to official censorship over content deemed politically sensitive or obscene.

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