Thematic investing

3 March 2016 By Quentin Webb

The group run by China’s richest man is already betting on soccer and movies, two famously fickle businesses. Now Wanda and France’s Auchan will build a $3.4 bln leisure complex near Paris. Theme parks can be a pretty wild ride: just look at the French capital’s Disneyland.

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Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin’s Dalian Wanda Group said on Feb. 26 it will invest in a multi-billion euro retail and leisure project outside Paris, as it seeks to expand around the world.

The Beijing-based company will invest in Alliages et Territoires, the company overseeing EuropaCity, a 3.1 billion euro ($3.4 billion) leisure park to be built outside Paris by 2024.

Alliages et Territoires is a unit of Immochan, the property unit of unlisted French supermarket company Auchan, one of the world’s largest food retailers.

EuropaCity will spread over 80 hectares and include hotels, restaurants, shopping centers and even a snow resort. Construction will begin in 2019.

It is being built at Gonesse, a town 16 kilometers northeast of Paris, between Le Bourget and Charles de Gaulle airports along a planned automatic metro line. It is expected to attract 31 million visitors a year and generate 11,800 jobs in the area.

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