Wanda Internet Business Restructures Operations, President Says

(Bloomberg) -- Dalian Wanda Group Co.’s struggling Internet business is restructuring, the unit’s President Qu Dejun said on a personal social-media account, after the state news organization The Paper reported the company would cut more than 1,000 jobs.

The closely held Internet group within billionaire Wang Jianlin’s real-estate-to-entertainment conglomerate is undergoing “a partial restructuring for better, faster and healthier development,” Qu said in the wechat post. Wanda Internet Technology Group declined to comment on the workforce reduction report.

The job cuts come after Wanda’s fledgling digital operation, which has aimed to develop an e-commerce model that works with brick-and-mortar retailers, delayed a $1.5 billion fundraising in September. The unit was aiming to turn a profit in 2018 and go public by 2020, Wang said in January 2017.

“We are still determined to combine physical commerce with technology,” Qu said in the post. “That goal remains unchanged.”

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Jing Yang de Morel in Shanghai at jyang543@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dave McCombs at dmccombs@bloomberg.net, Sam Nagarajan

©2017 Bloomberg L.P.

With assistance from Jing Yang de Morel