Talking about the first generation of Wanda, there is a piece of the past can not be avoided. 2005 around the same time, it is Wanda vigorously expanding the period, Wanda plans to go to Hong Kong to issue Reits listed but unsuccessful. Australia's largest investment group Macquarie is also looking for an opportunity to enter the mainland market, but also by coincidence, the two sides then hit it off. Macquarie purchased 9 Wanda Plazas (located in Nanjing, Jinan, Harbin, Shenyang, Tianjin, Wuhan, Changsha, Nanning and Dalian) from Wanda through a loan. 2005 was a time when Wanda was in dire need of blood for its development, and with no success in raising funds from the capital market, coupled with 21 commercial plazas already in operation or under construction at that time, the pressure on capital was immense. It reached an agreement with Macquarie and used it to cash out $3.1 billion. After the expiry of the entrusted management contract between Macquarie and Wanda Group, the two parties agreed to part ways. The Wanda Plazas in the nine cities mentioned above were all renamed "Yuehui Plaza". These nine Wanda Plazas, all of which are located in the city's most central business districts, should be valued at much more than the $3.1 billion. But then again, it is with the 3.1 billion in cash, Wanda seized the opportunity to expand to achieve today's giant scale, for both sides can be said to be a win-win situation.
The first-generation Wanda's masterpiece, Changsha Yuehui Plaza, is located in Changsha's municipal core business district, at the intersection of Huangxing South Pedestrian Street and Jiefang West Road, close to Changsha's Huangxing Road Pedestrian Street, with crisscrossing traffic routes and a crowd of people. The project covers an area of 18,000 square meters, with a total construction area of about 50,000 square meters. The so-called first-generation Wanda is commonly known as a "big commercial box". The single-floor area ranges from 5,000 to 10,000 square meters, generally 4 floors above ground, with a total size ranging from 30,000 to 50,000 square meters. The first floor is divided and sold, the second and third floors are equipped with Wal-Mart Supermarket as standard, and the fourth floor is equipped with Wanda Cinema+Big Game as standard, together with part of the food and beverage. Through the strategic cooperation with Wal-Mart, we can utilize the gathering power of the supermarket hypermarket to drive the flow of people and promote the sales return of the stores on the first floor. The catering and entertainment on the fourth floor can also effectively drive the purposeful consumption crowd. Wanda took this opportunity to create a precedent of order-based commercial real estate. In fact, such single-unit commercial planning is commonplace in all types of cities across the country, and cases of success and failure abound.
The first generation of Wanda's commercial planning was simple and easy to replicate quickly. However, the disadvantage is that it is difficult to support the cash flow of Wanda's rapid development with only the scattered sale of stores on the first floor. This is the reason why the first generation of Wanda is difficult to sustain, and finally had to break the wrist.