AMC's Disgraced Chinese Owner Wins Big in the GameStop Frenzy
Deeply indebted Dalian Wanda couldn’t get approval to list in China but its subsidiary has been swept up in the U.S. meme market madness.
From near bankruptcy to retail investor darling.
Photographer: Cheney Orr/BloombergAs the world marvels over the epic nerds versus Wall Street battle and GameStop Corp.’s gravity-defying rally, Wang Jianlin, a Chinese billionaire who has practically disappeared from the media limelight, must be feeling vindicated — and grateful to U.S. markets.
This is because the commercial real estate and entertainment tycoon, who as recently as 2016 was China’s richest man, controls AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., one of the distressed companies that retail investors were betting would become the next GameStop. Wang’s Dalian Wanda Group Co. Ltd. had bought the movie theater chain for $2.6 billion in 2012. As of December 14, 2020, the Chinese conglomerate owned 58.8% of AMC’s voting rights. Until online trading platforms paused the “meme” trade in GameStop and AMC on Thursday morning, the cinema company’s shares have soared over 800% to a $8 billion market cap. On Wednesday alone, its stock price was up more than 300%.