Rendering of One Beverly Hills, with Triple Five executive Nader Ghermezian (Richard Meier)
Triple Five Group, whose developments include shopping malls and entertainment complexes, is in escrow to purchase Dalian Wanda Group’s One Beverly Hills condo and hotel project and a stake in Vista Tower skyscraper in Chicago, The Real Deal has confirmed.
The deal comes nearly one year after China-based Wanda listed five of its massive overseas projects following calls by its government to curb overseas spending. Once the Triple Five deal closes, Wanda will have officially sold its interest in each of the five properties.
CoStar first reported on the sale of One Beverly Hills and Vista Tower.
The $1.2 billion One Beverly Hills complex, at 9900 Wilshire Boulevard, has had its share of issues since the luxury project was proposed. After Wanda almost let its permits expire, the firm cut a $60 million deal with the city of Beverly Hills for a six-month extension. Its development partner, Athens Group, exited the partnership last October for reasons that remain unclear.
Wanda paid $420 million for the One Beverly Hills site four years ago.
As part of the deal, Canada-based Triple Five will also purchase Wanda’s 60 percent stake in the planned Vista Tower, a 98-story mixed-use complex in Chicago that is under construction. Wanda Group valued its stake at $900 million. In April, TRD reported that a Wanda sale of its Vista Tower stake would be the largest-ever such deal of any Chinese interest in Chicago real estate.
Wanda, along with other Chinese firms, has been seeing pushback from its local government as China pulls back on foreign spending. The company, led by billionaire Wang Jianlin, is one of the largest owners of foreign assets, with more than $40 billion of property worldwide.
The firm sold its two projects in Australia — One Circular Quay and Jewel Resort — for a combined $913 million in January. That same month, it also unloaded its stake in the One Nine Elms in London for $81 million.
Triple Five, led by the Ghermezien family, owns some of the country’s largest shopping malls, including the Mall of America in Minnesota and the long-delayed American Dream mall in New Jersey.
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