The most popular shopping mall in Beijing is going to be sold.

Recently, market insiders revealed that Ingka Centres is planning to sell a package of 10 Livat shopping malls in China.

The first batch will include three Livat shopping malls located in Wuxi, Beijing, and Wuhan, involving a capital of 16 billion yuan. The acquirer is a fund led by Taikang Life Insurance. The total scale of the fund is 8 billion yuan. Among them, Taikang Life Insurance subscribes for 3 billion yuan, and other participating investors, including insurance funds such as Bank of China Samsung Life Insurance, Manulife-Sinochem Life Insurance, AIA, and MetLife, subscribe for a total of 3 billion yuan. Meanwhile, Ingka will subscribe for the junior tranche of the fund, contributing approximately 2 billion yuan, and the remaining 8 billion yuan is planned to be obtained through bank financing.

Livat Beijing, Image source: Winshang.com

The three Livat shopping malls in Wuxi, Beijing, and Wuhan are the first projects opened by Ingka in the Chinese mainland. They have been in operation for over 10 years and have all achieved good revenue performance in the market.

Among them, Livat Wuxi is the earliest project opened by Ingka in the Chinese mainland. It opened in 2013, with a total construction area of 250,000 square meters and a commercial leasing area of 150,000 square meters. In 2024, its annual sales reached 4.3 billion yuan, and the passenger flow exceeded 18 million person - times, which is equivalent to 2.5 times the permanent population of Wuxi.

Livat Beijing is the most popular shopping mall in the southern part of Beijing and has consistently ranked among the top 3 in terms of popularity in the whole city. The annual passenger flow is about 30 million person - times, and the estimated sales are around 10 billion yuan (the official data has not been released). The total construction area of Livat Beijing exceeds 500,000 square meters, the leasable area is nearly 210,000 square meters, and there are about 450 brands settled in, with the largest IKEA store in Beijing as the anchor tenant.

Livat Wuhan officially opened in 2015. The total construction area of the project is about 350,000 square meters, of which the commercial area accounts for about 170,000 square meters. The average daily passenger flow on weekends is stably over 50,000 person - times.

People familiar with the matter said that after the sale of the above three shopping malls, Ingka Centres may sell all the remaining seven Livat shopping malls in the follow - up.

In addition to the above three Livat shopping malls, the other seven are located in Fuzhou, Changsha, Nanning, Kunming, Hefei, Xi'an, and Shanghai. These 10 shopping malls are most of Ingka Centres' assets in the Chinese mainland, with a total leasable area of about 940,000 square meters.

According to Beijing Business Today, a person close to Livat Beijing said that after the acquisition, the operation team of the individual project will not change. Ingka will retain the operation right of the project and promises that the return rate of insurance institutions during the investment period will be close to 7%.

The main reason for Ingka Centres' sale of assets is the financial pressure of the group company. In the fiscal year 2024, Ingka Group's revenue decreased by 5.5% year - on - year to 41.864 billion euros, and the net profit was 806 million euros, a sharp drop of 46.5%. Selling assets will relieve the group's cash - flow pressure to a certain extent.

Ingka Group is the largest franchisee of the IKEA brand, accounting for about 90% of IKEA's global retail sales. The ownership of the IKEA brand belongs to Inter IKEA Group, which is also responsible for the global development, production, procurement, and supply - chain management of the IKEA product range. Although Ingka Group and Inter IKEA are different companies with different owners, they originated from the same founder, so they can be regarded as "brother companies" with the same origin.

IKEA, Image source: Company official

In 1998, IKEA Retail under Ingka Group opened its first store in the Chinese mainland, officially starting its retail business in China. In 2009, Ingka Centres, also belonging to Ingka Group, entered the mainland market and began to expand its commercial - complex business in China. This business mainly consists of Livat shopping malls and office buildings.

Currently, Ingka Group has opened 40 IKEA customer - contact points (including 37 stores, 2 experience stores, and 1 design - ordering center) and 10 Livat shopping malls in the Chinese mainland.