Wang Sicong has stepped down as director of Wanda Industrial Investment.

An industrial and commercial change has brought an end to the more than ten-year-long speculation of "Wanda's succession".

According to the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, Wanda Industrial Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Wanda Industrial Investment") has completed the filing change of senior management personnel. Wang Sicong officially stepped down as the director of the company, director Zhang Chunyuan quit at the same time, and Chen Hongtao was newly appointed as a director.

Wanda Industrial Investment was established in January 2021 with a registered capital of 100 million yuan, and its legal representative is Wang Jianlin. The equity structure shows that Wanda Industrial Investment is wholly owned by Dalian Hexing Investment Co., Ltd., while Wang Jianlin holds 98% of the shares of Dalian Hexing Investment and Wang Sicong holds 2%.

After this change, although Wang Sicong left the board of directors, he still retains his status as a shareholder.

In retrospect, this is the third time Wang Sicong has stepped down from Wanda's core entities in recent years:

In January 2020, he stepped down as the director of the operating company of Feifan.com, an e-commerce platform under Wanda. At that time, Feifan.com was a key project for Wanda to develop online business and deploy new retail. The company was deregistered in March 2020.

In August 2022, he stepped down as a director of Dalian Wanda Group Co., Ltd., directly breaking away from Wanda's core decision-making circle.

This time, Wang Sicong stepping down as the director of Wanda Industrial Investment means that he has vacated all directorships within the Wanda system and transformed into an external shareholder with indirect shareholding.

For a long time, as the only son of Wang Jianlin, Wang Sicong has been regarded by the outside world as Wanda's successor. But in fact, Wang Jianlin has publicly stated earlier that Wang Sicong has little interest in taking over Wanda's huge business territory.

Tianyancha shows that at present, Wang Sicong serves as the legal representative of Beijing Pusi Investment Co., Ltd. and holds senior management positions in 5 companies: he serves as the chairman of Shanghai Panda Interactive Entertainment Culture Co., Ltd., the supervisor of Shanghai Banana Project Culture Development Co., Ltd., the executive director and manager of Beijing Pusi Investment Co., Ltd., the director of Shanghai Aji Sports Culture Development Co., Ltd., and the supervisor of Beijing Yiqi Hong Management Consulting Co., Ltd.

In contrast to Wang Sicong's gradual fading out, Wang Jianlin is still on the front line.

In recent years, Wanda Group has continued to face liquidity pressure. According to incomplete statistics from media, Wanda has sold more than 80 Wanda Plazas in total since 2023. Now, with a debt of about 600 billion yuan, although it retains the operation and management rights of many Wanda Plaza projects, the ownership has changed hands.

Public information shows that in March 2024, PAG, together with funds under CITIC Capital, Avenue Investment, companies under the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Mubadala Investment Company and other institutions, injected another 600 billion yuan to establish Dalian Xindameng as a new shareholding platform.

Since then, the shareholding ratio of Dalian Wanda Commercial Management in Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management has dropped from 70.15% to 40%, while PAG and other investors hold a total of 60% of the shares, obtaining actual control.

At the same time, the debt pressure continues. On May 21 this year, Wang Jianlin and his friend Sun Xishuang were "dunned for debt" by Yonghui.

According to the announcement, Yonghui applied to the court for the enforcement of relevant debts of Dalian Yujin, Wang Jianlin, Sun Xishuang and Dalian Yifang Group. The involved amount includes the remaining share transfer price of 3.639 billion yuan and related liquidated damages, legal fees, arbitration fees and other expenses, totaling nearly 3.9 billion yuan.

In the "2026 Hurun Global Rich List" released in March this year, the wealth of Wang Jianlin's family has dropped to 10 billion yuan.

Despite the heavy pressure, 71-year-old Wang Jianlin has not stopped. In the past two years, Wang Jianlin has traveled frequently across the country to inspect a number of cultural tourism resources, continuing to seek a replicable development model for Wanda.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Leju Finance", the author is Li Lan, and it is published with authorization from 36Kr.