After selling off Wanda assets, the long - serving employees of Wang Jianlin were gradually "cleared out".
The real estate market has entered a downward cycle, and turmoil has become the norm. Funds from various sources have entered the market, shareholders have rotated, and professional managers have also started to engage in "flexible employment," including the previously popular old-timers. For example, at the beginning of the year, Zhu Jiusheng, the president of Vanke, resigned, and Xu Meng from Longfor Commercial was parachuted to Powerlong Commercial as the president.
Recently, Xiao Guangrui, an old-timer at Wanda, is also leaving his old employer.
On July 7, Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management internally issued the "Appointment of Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer." According to the notice, Xiao Guangrui resigned as the Chief Executive Officer of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management and Dalian Xindameng for personal reasons, and was succeeded by Huang Dewei, an executive from the PAG Group. At the same time, Huang Dewei and Hu Zhengwei jointly serve as the Co-Chairmen of Dalian Xindameng and Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management.
As a founding member of Wanda, Xiao Guangrui has worked at Wanda Group for 24 years. His exit from the core management of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management officially announces that the PAG Group has fully taken over Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management.
It has been more than a year since the PAG Group injected 60 billion yuan to take control of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management last year. Apart from adding nine investors to the board of directors, the PAG Group has not made major adjustments to the organizational structure. The management team has basically remained the same, including many old-timers at Wanda such as Xiao Guangrui, Wang Zhibin, Gao Yimin, Zhang Jing, Han Yang, and Pan Taonan. Only Huang Guobin from the Wanda Group left the board of directors in March this year.
01
The "Popular" Xiao Guangrui
In 2001, Xiao Guangrui joined Wanda Group. For the first more than a decade, he worked in the human resources department. Then he switched to the business department and held various positions such as assistant to the president, vice president of Wanda Culture Group, and senior vice president of Wanda Group. He once became a popular figure in front of Wang Jianlin.
A turning point in his fate occurred in 2020. In April of that year, Xiao Guangrui, who was then the general manager of the management center at Wanda Group, succeeded Qi Jie as the executive president of Wanda Commercial Management Group. Since then, Xiao Guangrui has been in charge of Wanda Commercial Management. A year later, Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management was established, and Xiao Guangrui was appointed as the president .
By March 2023, Xiao Guangrui reached the peak of his career, holding positions such as the chairman of Wanda Commercial Management, the chairman and president of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management. Then, with the entry of the PAG Group, the power of the Wanda Group was diluted, and Xiao Guangrui successively stepped down from positions such as the chairman of Dalian Xindameng Commercial Management and the chairman of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management. Before this departure, Xiao Guangrui only held the position of CEO of Dalian Xindameng and Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management.
Xiao Guangrui (first from the left) attends the signing ceremony between the group and Xiaomi (Source: Wanda's official website)
There were no signs of this resignation. On June 19, Xiao Guangrui still attended the signing ceremony of the strategic cooperation between the group and Xiaomi in Beijing as the CEO of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management. Leaving at the mid - year may not be his active choice. It may be related to the failure to meet the performance targets, or it may be that the PAG Group's takeover of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management is almost stable and no longer needs the help of this old-timer from Wanda.
According to insiders, Xiao Guangrui actually didn't want to leave and expressed his determination and loyalty to the PAG Group, the new employer, many times, but he didn't get his wish in the end.
Regardless of the reason, whether it was active or passive, everyone remained decent in the end. The appointment notice mentioned that the board of directors of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management thanked Xiao Guangrui for his great contributions to the company's development over the years. Some media reported that Xindameng's evaluation of Xiao Guangrui was that "it highly recognized the achievements of the asset-light transformation and the implementation of key projects promoted during his tenure, and there is a possibility of future strategic cooperation between the two parties in the field of cultural and tourism consumption upgrading."
Regarding his future after leaving, some say he will engage in the investment field of emerging industries, and there are also rumors that he will go to Sunac Commercial Management. However, a person from Sunac's headquarters refuted the rumor, saying that Xiao Guangrui has not joined.
Regarding Xiao Guangrui himself, the author saw on social media that the evaluation of him by Wanda's internal employees is not high. It is said that since he became the person in charge of Wanda Commercial Management, members of the original human resources team have been promoted. HRs with no experience were arranged to be store managers, while those who understand the business were not reused... However, some people also say that he is low - key and it is worthy of recognition that he fought for bonuses for employees.
Some Wanda employees described him as a "smiling tiger" and joked that "he chants scriptures during the day and kills at night."
The "chanting scriptures" comes from the rumor that he believes in Buddhism and is a vegetarian. One year, he called on the company to donate millions of yuan to children with cleft lip and palate. On his personal official account revealed by Wanda employees, the author saw that the texts were basically like soul - stirring chicken soup, and the cover pictures of all articles were various kinds of lotuses. Unexpectedly, this official account was updated daily. The reading volume was not low, with about 3,000 in the past six months. On July 7 and the next day when the news of his departure spread, the reading volume of the official account articles reached over 10,000. Judging from the publishing IP, in the past 20 days, except for July 7 and 8 when he was in Sichuan, he was almost in Beijing for the rest of the time.
The introduction of his official account reads "Bless everyone." Some Wanda employees once said it should be "Bless everyone, except Wanda people."
Updated articles on the official account "Bless everyone"
02
The "PAG Group" Fully Takes the Helm
Huang Dewei, a partner of PAG Investment, and Hu Zhengwei, the head of the China region of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, have replaced Xiao Guangrui. They belong to the "PAG Group," and PAG Investment is the leading force in this group.
PAG Investment, known as the "Blackstone of Asia," was jointly founded by Shan Weijian, Chris Gradel, and Jon - Paul Toppino. The overseas private equity giant Blackstone is its third - largest shareholder. Its business involves private equity, real estate, credit, and market - related investments, and it manages assets of over $55 billion.
The reason why the "PAG Group" has become the real controller of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management today dates back to four years ago. At that time, Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management obtained an investment of 38 billion yuan from 22 institutions at the cost of a 21.17% stake, including $2.8 billion from PAG Investment, and promised to go public by the end of 2023. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned. Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management submitted its IPO application four times, all ending in failure. Due to the large initial investment and the expectation of going public, PAG Investment decided to increase its investment.
Subsequently, we saw that PAG Investment took the lead in establishing Dalian Xindameng and took control of it with a 60% stake, starting to take over Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management. Soon after, the "PAG Group" began to restructure the board of directors of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management. In October last year, Huang Dewei replaced Xiao Guangrui as the chairman of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management. At the same time, the number and structure of the new board members were also adjusted. So now, it is no surprise that Xiao Guangrui has stepped down from his positions related to Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management and Xindameng, and people from the PAG Group have taken over. Wang Jianlin once said: "Wanda Commercial Management is the core of Wanda. I can lose any other enterprise, but not this one." Now it seems that it was just a joke.
The equity structure of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management
On the official website of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management, the relevant information of Huang Dewei, the co - chairman and chief executive officer of the group, and Hu Zhengwei, the co - chairman of the group, has been updated. The official information shows that Huang Dewei is a partner of PAG Investment Group, the co - head of private equity business, and the president of PAG China. He has worked at Morgan Stanley and TPG and is good at capital operation. Hu Zhengwei is the head of the private equity department of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) in China, responsible for ADIA's private equity investment work in the Greater China region. He has worked at Morgan Stanley, Warburg Pincus, and JD.com and is proficient in cross - border investment.
It is said that on July 9, the new leaders attended the monthly meeting of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management, and the atmosphere was good.
Some members of the board of directors on the official website of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management
With Xiao Guangrui's departure, Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management may start a new round of adjustment. According to what Wanda employees said online, Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management will merge the four major regions (southeast, northwest) across the country into two major regions, north and south, and 29 city companies will be merged into 15 city centers.
After the merger, the regional leaders will also change accordingly. For example, Pan Taonan, the current vice - president of the group and the president of the Western Region Company, is proposed to be the president of the merged Southern Region; Han Yang, the current vice - president of the group and the president of the Eastern Region Company, is proposed to be the president of the merged Northern Region; Xu Fen, the vice - president of the group and the president of the Northern Region Company, will be promoted to the executive vice - president of the group; Sun Yazhou, the vice - president of the group and the president of the Southern Region Company, may leave.
In terms of scale, what Huang Dewei has in hand is a huge commercial empire: it covers 228 cities, with over 513 Wanda Plazas and a commercial area of up to 70.9 million square meters.
However, there are undercurrents beneath the glamorous appearance.
Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management, which has failed in four IPO attempts, failed to go public when the market was better. Now, under the background of consumption downgrade, what is the probability of success in another attempt? If it fails to go public, how can PAG, which has been deeply involved for many years, make up for the investment losses?
In the three years after PAG's investment in 2021, Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management had good performance. According to official data, its after - tax income increased by an average of about 12% annually, and the after - tax profit increased by 34% annually. However, the specific performance figures of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management for 2024 have not been found.
Now, the financial capital represented by the PAG Group has become the helmsman of this physical commercial platform of Wanda Commercial Management. Whether it can improve the operation and create value in the future remains to be seen. But we also look forward to seeing that the commercial real estate after the injection of this new blood can inspire new hopes.