Photo/Zhang Yun

Dec. 5 (NBD) -- Yonghui Superstores ("Yonghui") has entered an agreement to acquire a 1.5 percent stake in Dalian Wanda Commercial Management Group Co., Ltd ("Wanda Commercial") for approximately 3.531 billion yuan (515.7 million U.S. dollars), the Chinese supermarket chain announced on Tuesday evening.

According to the announcement, Yonghui agreed to buy the shares in the commercial arm of Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group ("Wanda") from Dalian Yifang Group at the price of 52 yuan (7.6 U.S. dollars) each.

Based on the purchasing price, Wanda Commercial, formerly Wanda Commercial Properties, is valued at around 235.42 billion yuan (34.4 billion U.S. dollars), declining slightly from the level when Tencent partnered with Suning Commerce Group, JD.com and Sunac China Holdings to buy a combined 14 percent stake in Wanda Commercial for 34 billion yuan (5.0 billion U.S. dollars).

Tencent holds a 5 percent stake in Yonghui and a 15 percent stake in the latter's Super Species fresh produce retail chain.

Founded in 2002 with a registered capital of 4.52 billion yuan (660.1 million U.S. dollars), Wanda Commercial is Wanda's sole business platform for commercial property investments and operations. Wanda Commercial got listed in Hong Kong in December 2014 and later delisted in September 2016.

As of 2017, Wanda Commercial had opened 235 Wanda plazas in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Kunming and other cities all over China, holding 31.51 million square meters of property space and receiving 3.19 billion visitors annually.

A source at Yonghui said to NBD that as the company is the largest supermarket property client of Wanda Commercial, the acquisition is to lock in future quality property.

As of June 30 of 2018, Wanda Commercial had total assets worth 633.9 billion yuan (92.6 billion U.S. dollars), with net assets standing at 254 billion yuan (37.1 billion U.S. dollars). In the first half of this year, the company posted 51.8 billion yuan (7.6 billion U.S. dollars) in operating revenue and 15.8 billion yuan (2.3 billion U.S. dollars) in net profits.

The commercial unit of Wanda has been preparing for an initial public offering on the country's A-share market for three years. According to Wanda Commercial's prospectus submitted to the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) in 2015, the company planned to issue no more than 250 million shares to raise 12 billion yuan (1.75 billion U.S. dollars). The proceeds would be invested in Wanda plazas in cities including Nanjing and Chengdu.

NBD noticed that as of November 29, 2018, Wanda Commercial's IPO application was at the stage of "feedback ". According to standard procedure, an enterprise's IPO application shall go through stages including acceptance of the application, pre-disclosure, feedback, face-to-face meeting, reply to the CSRC’s feedback, pre-disclosure updates.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn