Wanda Hotel halts trading pending 'substantial' sale disclosure

[SHANGHAI] Wanda Hotel Development halted trading Friday in Hong Kong, pending the announcement of a "very substantial" sale.

Wanda Hotel, which disclosed the halt in a stock exchange filing, fell 2.2 per cent to close at HK$1.35 on Thursday.

Billionaire Wang Jianlin's Dalian Wanda Group, the parent of Wanda Hotel, is close to reaching an agreement to sell two Australian luxury property projects - one in Sydney and one on the nation's Gold Coast, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Wanda agreed to sell its interests in the One Nine Elms project on the south bank of London's River Thames. Wanda's flagship commercial properties unit is faced with a cash crunch outside China, with over US$2 billion in overseas debts due this year.

Moody's Investor Service, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings have downgraded the unit to junk in the past few months.

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