--FILE--Vista di un Wanda Plaza di Dalian Wanda Group in Cina a Shanghai, 1 dicembre 2016. Dalian Wanda del gruppo spostare per offrire un prestito considerevole di Tianji
--FILE--View of a Wanda Plaza of Dalian Wanda Group in Shanghai, China, 1 December 2016. Dalian Wanda Group's move to offer a sizable loan to Tianjin-based property firm Sunac China Holdings so that it can acquire $9.3 billion worth of Wanda's tourism assets and hotels has sparked widespread controversy in recent days. Some analysts questioned whether the move is a form of transforming equity financing into a kind of debt arrangement, while others said that it only reflects Wanda's desire to close the deal and find an exit from its real estate assets. Wanda announced on Monday (10 July 2017) that it will sell 91 percent of its 13 tourism assets as well as 76 hotels to Sunac in a deal worth 63.18 billion yuan ($9.3 billion). But the property conglomerate is lending Sunac 29.6 billion yuan, nearly half of the total amount, to push the deal through, according to a filing by Sunac with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Tuesday (11 July 2017). "Wanda shall secure a three-year loan of 29.6 billion yuan through designated banks and advance the borrowings to Sunac, " the filing said. This appeared to run contrary to what Sunac Chairman Sun Hongbin said in an interview on Monday with financial news portal Caixin: "The funds involved in the deal all came from the company's own capital pool, " Sun was quoted as saying. This kind of vendor financing is "quite rare" in equity transfers, most of which are generally aimed at clearing the relevant goods and proceeds within a short time, Yan Yuejin, research director at Shanghai-based E-house China R&D Institute, told the Global Times on Thursday (13 July 2017).
