China's
Wanda extends Hollywood push with Dick Clark deal
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[November 04, 2016] SHANGHAI/SAN
FRANCISCO (Reuters) - China's Dalian Wanda has agreed a
$1 billion takeover of Dick Clark Productions, the
company that runs the Golden Globe awards and Miss
America pageants, extending the Chinese
property-to-entertainment conglomerate's buying spree in
Hollywood.
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Wanda, run by China's richest man, Wang Jianlin, said in a
statement on Friday it would buy all of Dick Clark Productions,
an iconic name in U.S. entertainment that also produces the
Academy of Country Music Awards and the Billboard Music Awards.
Dick Clark's owner, media investment holding company Eldridge
Industries, had said it was in talks with Wanda in September.
Founded by TV presenter Dick Clark, host of the "American
Bandstand" pop music TV show from 1957 to 1987, the eponymous
firm went public in 1986 before being taken private 16 years
later.
Wanda's deal is its latest move in a cruise into Hollywood. It
already owns Legendary Entertainment, co-producer of film hits
such as "Jurassic World", and U.S. cinema chain AMC
Entertainment Holdings Inc <AMC.N>. It also has business ties
with Sony Pictures and Sony Corp's <6758.T> film unit in China.
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The drive has raised concern among some U.S. lawmakers about
China's influence in Hollywood and the impact it might have on
media in the United States. Wang has said his motivation comes
from a "business perspective" and not a political one.
Wanda said in its statement that the deal marked its "first
step" into television content to sit alongside its investments
in theme parks, film production and sport. It added it would
keep Dick Clark's current management team after the deal.
In August, Wang told Reuters he expected to seal two
billion-dollar deals in the U.S. this year. He aims to bring
Hollywood technology and muscle to China, and has expressed
interest in the so-called "big six" Hollywood studios.
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Wang is now trying to attract Hollywood film makers with subsidies
to a new production studio in China's eastern city of Qingdao.
Meanwhile U.S. film producers are also looking for a way into
China's fast-growing cinema market.
Wang predicts the Chinese box office would match the biggest market
- the United States and Canada - by 2018, and grow by about 15
percent annually for the next 10 years.
Reuters first reported in June that Eldridge Industries, the U.S.
owner of magazines Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter as well as
Dick Clark Productions, had hired investment banks to carry out a
review of its media holdings.
An Eldridge representative was not immediately available for comment
outside regular U.S. business hours.
(Reporting by Adam Jourdan in SHANGHAI and Liana Baker in SAN
FRANSISCO; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Christopher Cushing)
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