WUHAN, China, January 5, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- On December 29, 2014, two overseas internet investment funds offered 1 billion yuan for a 5% stake in Wanda E-commerce, quadrupling the value of the 4 month-old business to 20 billion yuan. This record investment for a newly established e-commerce company shows how highly Wanda E-commerce is regarded by the general public.
The two investment funds, Centec Networks and Xude Rendao, will hold a 3% and 2% equity interest in Wanda E-commerce, respectively. The investors are fully confident in the "Tencent-Baidu-Wanda" partnership and their O2O business model.
Wanda E-commerce was established in Hong Kong with a registered capital of RMB 5 billion after Wanda, Tencent and Baidu announced their partnership at a signing ceremony in Shenzhen on August 2014. Wanda Group controls a 70% stake in the venture, while Tencent and Baidu each hold a 15% stake. The partnership announced an investment of 20 billion yuan over 5 years, aiming to build the world's largest O2O E-commerce company. Following the investment, Mr. Wang Jianlin and Wanda Commercial (HK03699) will each hold a 35% stake in Wanda E-commerce respectively, and will remain as controlling shareholders in the company.
As one of their four core industries, Wanda Group places a great deal of importance on the e-commerce sector. On December 26, 2014, Wanda Group acquired a controlling stake in China's fourth ranked online payment platform 99Bill, assuming control of an important payment platform to advance its e-commerce and finance related businesses. This acquisition, in tandem with free Wi-Fi coverage and pilot beacon technology trials completed, a large data center in construction, and dozens of O2O software services under development, means Wanda E-commerce is setting a strong pace for O2O and is expected to be fully operational in the fourth quarter of 2015.
O2O places a greater importance on the link between people and services than traditional commercial methods, with the size of the market considerably greater than just physical transactions. Wanda possesses the world's largest offline consumer network, with 1.5 million customers in 2014 and an estimated 6 billion customers by 2020. If Wanda E-commerce can combine its offline and online resources effectively, it has the potential to become a new Internet giant with incredible potential. It is understood that Wanda E-commerce will initiate a second round of fundraising in the fourth quarter of 2015, when the company's value will be further reassessed.
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