Chinese Wanda Group to Invest in French EuropaCity Project

It’s the first push of the Dalian Wanda Group in France: As recently announced, Wanda has signed an investment contract with the real estate company Immochan, a subsidiary of the French retail group Auchan, in Paris at the end of February. The agreement provides the joint development of EuropaCity, a new leisure complex that will be built for a total investment volume of more than three billion euros about 16 kilometers northeast of Paris in the town of Gonesse. The construction works are expected to start in 2019; the opening is scheduled for 2024. Covering an area of 80 hectares, EuropaCity will feature, among other things, a theme park, a water park, a ski hall, an event area, several hotels as well as diverse shops and restaurants. About 14,000 new jobs will be created through the project.

“We have wanted to develop ourselves in France for a while, and particularly in Paris, as I had told the French President during his visit to China last November. EuropaCity allows us to finally reach that objective and we are pleased to collaborate with a famous French stakeholder to develop this ambitious and innovative project. For us, it is the most important project outside of China,” says Wang Jianlin, Chairman of Dalian Wanda Group.

The investment in EuropaCity is part of Wanda Group’s global expansion strategy. This past January, the company has already acquired the US-based Legendary Entertainment film production company for an amount of 3.5 billion US dollars (about 3.2 billion euros). (eap)