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Re: Ironman/Wanda Purchases Rock 'n Roll Marathons [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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GreenPlease wrote:
1poseur1 wrote:
Chinese ponzi scheme/real estate developer/endurance sports behemoth is hitting a wall in its entertainment business. Over-levered conglomerates with no coherent business strategy do not end well. I wonder how long before they sell WTC?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-18/beijing-confidential-chinese-firm-s-hollywood-expansion-blocked



I was going to bring this up as well. It's hard to know just how deep Wanda's pockets are and what assets they'll prioritize in the event of a liquidity crunch.

While some of Wanda's purchases do not make sense, others seem to be part of a coherent growth strategy. Consider these Wanda purchases:

Infront Sports & Media - a Swiss company whose CEO has completed over a dozen Ironman races.
World Triathlon Corporation - my understanding is that the WTC CEO reports to the more experienced Ironman finisher at Infront.
Competitor Group - seen as an important feeder to triathlon. Expect to see Ironman booths at RnR events in the near future.
Miscellaneous major running and cycling events in Europe, Australia and South Africa.

There is a pattern here and you don't sell a major component of your car if that would compromise its functional purpose. Meanwhile, if you look at WTC's current and old address, you will see they moved to a new location in Tampa. Inside scoop is that they are preparing to move Competitor Group from San Diego to Tampa and they needed a larger space.

Ever since Wanda purchased WTC, I've noticed an anti-Chinese bias on ST and in social media as if only a U.S. business has the right to manage the Ironman franchise, and as if Wanda is clueless on how to run it. But these purchases make strategic sense and will hopefully leverage the sport in a positive direction.
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Re: Ironman/Wanda Purchases Rock 'n Roll Marathons [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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HuffNPuff wrote:
GreenPlease wrote:
1poseur1 wrote:
Chinese ponzi scheme/real estate developer/endurance sports behemoth is hitting a wall in its entertainment business. Over-levered conglomerates with no coherent business strategy do not end well. I wonder how long before they sell WTC?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-18/beijing-confidential-chinese-firm-s-hollywood-expansion-blocked



I was going to bring this up as well. It's hard to know just how deep Wanda's pockets are and what assets they'll prioritize in the event of a liquidity crunch.


While some of Wanda's purchases do not make sense, others seem to be part of a coherent growth strategy. Consider these Wanda purchases:

Infront Sports & Media - a Swiss company whose CEO has completed over a dozen Ironman races.
World Triathlon Corporation - my understanding is that the WTC CEO reports to the more experienced Ironman finisher at Infront.
Competitor Group - seen as an important feeder to triathlon. Expect to see Ironman booths at RnR events in the near future.
Miscellaneous major running and cycling events in Europe, Australia and South Africa.

There is a pattern here and you don't sell a major component of your car if that would compromise its functional purpose. Meanwhile, if you look at WTC's current and old address, you will see they moved to a new location in Tampa. Inside scoop is that they are preparing to move Competitor Group from San Diego to Tampa and they needed a larger space.

Ever since Wanda purchased WTC, I've noticed an anti-Chinese bias on ST and in social media as if only a U.S. business has the right to manage the Ironman franchise, and as if Wanda is clueless on how to run it. But these purchases make strategic sense and will hopefully leverage the sport in a positive direction.

I still struggle to see what the synergy is between and among these and a portfolio of Chinese real estate, several movie studio, a cinema operator, a yacht maker, and a theme park business. How do you define "leveraging the sport in a positive direction?"
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Re: Ironman/Wanda Purchases Rock 'n Roll Marathons [1poseur1] [ In reply to ]
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I am only talking about the synergy behind the purchases I specifically listed. I don't see any relationship between the sports side and the entertainment and other divisions. I can't even rationalize the diversity as a risk reduction strategy because all of those divisions seem to be susceptible to a market downturn. E.g., discretionary entertainment, ironman registrations, and yacht purchases would all be hurt by a recession.
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Re: Ironman/Wanda Purchases Rock 'n Roll Marathons [1poseur1] [ In reply to ]
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Interesting. Thanks for sharing this.

Wanda is a massive organization and business. The IRONMAN part of it at least at this time is rather small. The addition of Rock-n-Roll to the portfolio does add some size and volume to the whole thing.

All endurance sports in North America - the big ones of running, cycling & triathlon have flattened out or are down year-over-year. The story in Asia right now is VERY different. The growth in mass participatory endurance sports races/events is growing robustly. The growth in some of the larger big city Marathons has been extraordinary in the past 5 years in Asia.

India - is even starting to pick up.

When you start talking about China, India and greater Asia, stuff like this starts to become a staggering game of numbers. Consider the combined population of China and India is well over 2 billion. Throw in the rest of SE Asia and you are now over 3 Billion - that's nearly half of the worlds whole population!


Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
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Re: Ironman/Wanda Purchases Rock 'n Roll Marathons [Fleck] [ In reply to ]
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Fleck wrote:
When you start talking about China, India and greater Asia, stuff like this starts to become a staggering game of numbers. Consider the combined population of China and India is well over 2 billion. Throw in the rest of SE Asia and you are now over 3 Billion - that's nearly half of the worlds whole population!

Maybe, but marathon, triathlon, etc. are highly discretionary purchases for the leisure class, a description that applies to a very small segment of greater Asia. As far as China has come in recent years, its GDP per capita is <$8,000 USD. India/Vietnam/Philippines are ~$1,500/$2,000/$2,900. For perspective, Mexico GDP is $9,000 per capita.

As someone in the investment business that lived through the China boom in which every (money losing) pitch was some variation of "but there are 1 billion people!" I am highly skeptical....
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Re: Ironman/Wanda Purchases Rock 'n Roll Marathons [1poseur1] [ In reply to ]
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Agreed all around - it's all dependent on how big this, "middle-class+" becomes in the region.

For the average person in the area, something like running, cycling (other than for basic transportation) and for sure triathlon - will be well beyond their economic means.


Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
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Re: Ironman/Wanda Purchases Rock 'n Roll Marathons [1poseur1] [ In reply to ]
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I can only speak anecdotally, but having traveled a lot, I can tell you that I am seeing well-off Chinese tourists all over Europe. As just one example, of the top ten visitor nations to Iceland, China is now #6. Yeah, the average Chinese national is relatively oor, but if a small percentage start making the big yuan, then that is a big market.
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Re: Ironman/Wanda Purchases Rock 'n Roll Marathons [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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Yeah, the average Chinese national is relatively oor, but if a small percentage start making the big yuan, then that is a big market.
I was going to say the same thing, how many millions of millionaires are there already in China and India? The sport only needs a couple hundred thousand to be a viable business model, sure there are plenty to fill that number. Just saw that there are 100's of billions coming from Chinese people to buy up our real estate, certainly if you can buy a house that you done even live in, you can afford our little sport..
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Re: Ironman/Wanda Purchases Rock 'n Roll Marathons [monty] [ In reply to ]
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Wang gets punished......that sounds painful.
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Re: Ironman/Wanda Purchases Rock 'n Roll Marathons [Poon] [ In reply to ]
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Poon wrote:
It seems like the athletic assets are an outlier to the greater emphasis on entertainment businesses. It also would seem to be less integrated into the whole. I would like to see WTC return to US ownership and get away from this emphasis on overseas growth, but it probably is unrealistic to think any of this will make a difference to the experience of the US race consumer. If Wanda sells, it probably will just go back to a PE firm at a loss.


There's a division of Life Time Fitness just outside of Boulder, Colorado waiting to manage more races. Life Time lost the bid to buy WTC to Wanda and I believe they would like another bite at that apple ;-)

DFL > DNF > DNS
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