Wang Jianlin: He sold out 80 Wanda Plazas | [Business Profile]

Ask AI · What industry concerns lie behind Wang Jianlin selling 80 Wanda Plazas?

What is happening to the man who shouted, “A 8B yuan small target”?

《Business Figures Dossier Research Group》

On February 6, 2026, an unremarkable financial news item quietly circulated within the business world: Dalian Wanda Commercial Management Group issued a $360 million (about RMB 2.5 billion) U.S. dollar bond successfully at an annual interest rate of 12.75%. 12.75%—this number made many people in the financial circles go silent for a moment. After all, even for companies with relatively poor credit ratings right now, it is rare to finance with such a high coupon. This means the market has already priced Wanda’s ability to repay as being close to the “high-risk range.” And the purpose of this money is to repay an earlier piece of old debt issued in 2023. Borrow debt to repay debt, and swap high interest for a chance at survival. This is the “extreme self-rescue” that the 71-year-old Wang Jianlin is going through.

I. From 220 billion to 58.8 billion: the fall of a number

In 2013, Wang Jianlin topped the Hurun China Rich List for the first time with a fortune of 135 billion yuan. At that time, Wanda was in its heyday: more than 200 Wanda Plazas across the country, Wanda Hotels, Wanda Pictures, and Wanda Sports—forming a super-sized map spanning commercial real estate and cultural entertainment. Those were Wang Jianlin’s most confident years. In a program, he told young people, “First set a small goal—like earning that first 100 million yuan.” This line became a catchphrase and a footnote to an era. Yet the peak of wealth is often also the starting point of a turning point.

In 2017, regulators began tightening restrictions on real-estate developers’ overseas acquisitions, and the logic behind Wanda’s earlier large-scale overseas expansion ran into a policy headwind. Wang Jianlin had no choice but to start selling assets—77 hotels and 13 cultural-tourism projects were transferred one after another, exiting AMC cinema line equity and shrinking the overseas footprint. That year, he said, “Wanda has gone through turbulence and endured hardship.”

The outside world thought this was simply an active adjustment. No one expected that it was only the prelude to a long contraction. In October 2025, the “New Fortune 500/Innovators and Founders” list was released, and the wealth of Wang Jianlin and his son fell from 140.8 billion yuan in 2024 to 58.8 billion yuan. Within a year, it shrank by 82 billion yuan, and its ranking dropped from No. 9 to No. 51.

II. Selling 80 Wanda Plazas over three years: a long severing of an arm

Since 2023, Wanda has launched a rare round of large-scale asset liquidation. Based on incomplete counts by multiple media outlets, starting in 2023 Wanda has sold more than 80 Wanda Plazas in total—note that this is not a complete sell-off. Wanda typically keeps operational and management rights, but ownership and equity have already changed hands. In May 2025, Wanda bundled and sold 48 Wanda Plazas in one go, causing an uproar in the industry. “Either you sell, or you die.” A person close to Wanda described the situation at the time this way. Wanda Group’s total liabilities are about 600 billion yuan, and the pressure to repay in the near term is extremely heavy. The cash-to-short-debt ratio was once only 0.2—meaning for every 1 yuan of short-term debt, there is only 0.2 yuan of cash on the books to match.

In September 2025, the Lanzhou Intermediate People’s Court in Gansu Province issued a restriction on consumption order involving Wanda Group and Wang Jianlin himself, with an enforcement amount of about 186 million yuan. By the end of that year, Wanda Group had been listed as a party subject to enforcement 7 times within the year, with total enforcement amounts exceeding 100 million yuan. The former Chinese tycoon—once No. 1 in China—appeared multiple times on the court enforcement publicity lists. Even rights related to first-class cabin seats with multipliers were temporarily stripped.

In December 2025, Wang Jianlin finally pressed a button with strong symbolic meaning: spending about 700 million yuan to buy back a Wanda Plaza previously sold from the buyer. This move was interpreted by outsiders as, “the funds have finally caught their breath, and it’s starting to repurchase in specific areas”—but in the face of overall debt, this is nothing more than a small footnote.

III. 12.75%—it’s both a dead-end and a fight for survival

Let’s return to that opening deal: the $2.5 billion high-coupon bond with interest at 12.75%. What does 12.75% mean? Taking this bond as an example, Wanda needs to pay about 320 million yuan in interest to bondholders each year—just the interest alone is enough to build a commercial project of medium size. Yet it still has to borrow. The old debt issued in 2023 had an interest rate of 11%, principal of $400 million, and a maturity date of February 13, 2026. Wanda chose to extend the term, repaying the principal in four installments and extending it to August 2027. The newly issued $2.5 billion bond is precisely to repay part of the principal. It is worth noting that after this bond was issued, the market reaction was not cold. Ultimately, the subscription amount reached $650 million, covering 43 investment accounts, and the subscription multiple exceeded 1.8x. This shows that the capital market has not completely lost confidence in Wanda: Wanda Plaza’s commercial operating model is still recognized by some institutions, and the core assets still retain a certain appeal. For Wang Jianlin, this may be one of the best pieces of news he has received in the past three years. After holding on for three years, he finally waited for a window to breathe.

IV. At 71, he’s still on the battlefield

A detail has circulated in the business world. During the same period when Wang Jianlin was busy with debt restructuring and gradually selling Wanda assets, media captured a scene where his son Wang Sicong appeared in a VIP suite at a certain high-end entertainment venue in Macau. The father is disarming bombs at the front line, while the son is living it up in the back. This image has hurt many people. But others say Wang Sicong has been out of Wanda’s operations for many years, and the business fates of father and son have long since been separated. As to what is true, outsiders cannot know. But when that photo appears side by side with Wang Jianlin’s debt-related news, it creates an extremely jarring contrast—two generations living very different lives, and the most unavoidable human dimension in a family wealth story. Wang Jianlin himself has never publicly complained, nor has he ever announced defeat. He continues to appear in Wanda’s management decision-making tier, still planning bond issuance, extensions, sales, and buybacks. At 71, his physical strength and energy are no longer what they were in his prime, but he is still standing on this battlefield.

V. How much is that “small target” worth today?

Ten years ago, “earn that first 100 million yuan” became a popular catchphrase online, reflecting the boundless bravado of China’s business expansion era. Ten years later, Wang Jianlin, with his wealth shrinking by 82 billion yuan, selling 80 Wanda Plazas, and taking on high-interest liabilities at 12.75%, turned in a “bill” with an entirely different meaning. His story is neither a simple success-story template nor a lighthearted failure warning. It is a real business chronicle about an era, leverage, policy, and human nature. From retiring from the military camp in Dalian, to building a multi-billion-yuan commercial empire, and now to severing an arm to fight for survival—Wang Jianlin’s rise-and-fall trajectory overlaps almost perfectly with the rise and decline of China’s real-estate industry over the past three decades. Wanda’s predicament was never only Wang Jianlin’s alone. It’s just that, in the end, the risk is carried by him alone. The man who shouted “a 100 million yuan small target” is now using all his remaining strength to defend those remaining plazas—along with that other name, one that still refuses to bow its head.

This is 《Business Figures Dossier》. In our next issue, we’ll continue breaking down the humanity, strategy, and fate behind business.