HONG KONG-The Dalian Wanda Group of China, privately controlled by the billionaire Wang Jianlin, said Wednesday that it would invest 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) to build a luxury hotel and apartment complex in London and acquire the British yacht maker Sunseeker International.
Dalian Wanda, which last year paid $2.6 billion for AMC Entertainment, an American operator of cinema chains, said the two British investments would further its goal of expanding beyond the Chinese real estate market and into the overseas luxury, entertainment and tourism industries.
The company will pay 320 million pounds for a 91.8 percent stake in Sunseeker, whose high-end motor yachts have been featured in several recent James Bond films.
‘‘With the committed support of Wanda, Sunseeker is well placed to take full advantage of opportunites in China, one of the world’s fastest-growing luxury yacht markets,’’ Mr. Wang said in a statement Wednesday.
At the same time, Dalian Wanda announced that it would spend 700 million pounds building a luxury Wanda Hotel on the South Bank in London, the company’s first hotel outside China. The site, covering 105,000 square meters, or 1.1 million square feet, and with views of the River Thames, Westminster Palace and Battersea Power Station, will include a 20,000-square-meter, 160-room hotel as well as 63,000 square meters of upscale apartments.
Dalian Wanda said the hotel project had already received planning consent, and, in a statement, the company quoted London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, as saying city officials had ‘‘worked tirelessly with Dalian Wanda Group to secure this cracking deal.’’
