Wanda Group

Wanda Group (Chinese: 万达集团; pinyin: Wàndá Jítuán), or the Dalian Wanda Group (大连万达), is a Chinese multinational conglomerate founded in Dalian, Liaoning, and headquartered in Beijing. The conglomerate's core businesses are a private property developer and an entertainment company, effectively acting as the owner of Wanda Cinemas and the Hoyts Group line of cinema chains.

With investments within mainland China and globally, the Dalian Wanda group has investments across many industries including construction, entertainment, media, industrial manufacturing, financial services, high technology, hospitality, real estate, retail, health care, and sports. It ranked 380th on the Fortune Global 500 List in 2017. Also in 2017, its assets amounted to 700 billion yuan and an annual revenue of 227.4 billion yuan ($35.29 billion). Wanda Cultural Industry Group is one of China's cultural enterprises, which includes movie theaters as well as sports and film production assets, and contributed 28% or $10.85 billion to overall revenue. Wanda Group ranks 28th on the 2020 China Top 500 Private Enterprises List.

The company was founded in Dalian, Liaoning, in 1988 as a residential real estate company by Chinese businessman and investor Wang Jianlin. Incorporated in 1992, the company was "one of the first shareholding companies in the People's Republic of China" after the economic reform. The company started to use the name "Wanda" since then. "Wàn" (Chinese: 万) means ten thousand, and "Dá" (Chinese: 达) means to reach or attain. In combination, the company's name is a slogan aspiring to be able to reach everything.

Since 2005, Dalian Wanda and other prominent Chinese real estate companies such as Evergrande have made numerous forays into "alternative, income-generating businesses away from the income-producing Chinese property market." The Financial Times noted that Dalian Wanda was the "most aggressive" company in pursuing this strategy, pointing to its 2012 acquisition of American cinema chain AMC Theatres and 2013 purchase of British yachtmaker Sunseeker. It noted that it was also "building theme parks across China, and has a joint venture with Tencent and Baidu to set up an e-commerce platform".

Dalian Wanda acquired the American cinema operator AMC Theatres in May 2012 for US$2.6 billion, the largest Chinese acquisition of an American company to that date. The acquisition went through successfully in August 2012, making Wanda Cinemas the world's largest cinema operator. As of 2016, Wanda owned approximately 6% of all commercial movie screens in China, and about 13% in the U.S. The company made major changes in AMC theater design and layout, including generously sized reclining seats, waiter service, and expanded food and drink offerings. AMC's value more than doubled in the 18 months following the acquisition, and by the end of 2014 Wanda reaped a reported profit of about US$900 million. As of 2021, Dalian Wanda no longer has control of AMC.

In June 2013, Dalian Wanda planned to invest $1.1 billion to develop a new five-star hotel in London next to the Thames River in Vauxhall, South London, as part of the Nine Elms regeneration. Mayor of London Boris Johnson welcomed this move. The building was said to become "Western Europe’s tallest residential building" until plans were scrapped in 2015.

In June 2013, Dalian Wanda acquired Sunseeker International, a British luxury yacht manufacturer used in the James Bond movies, for $500 million. This acquisition gave Wanda a 92 percent stake in the company.

In January 2015, Dalian Wanda purchased an office building in Sydney, Australia, from American alternative investment management firm Blackstone Group for around US$327 million. The company is "aggressively expanding overseas to move away from China's property market, which has been hit by a slowing economy".