China’s Yunfeng, Wanda back sports entertainment business
Yunfeng Capital and conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group have led a Series A round of funding worth RMB800 million ($129 million) for LeTV Sports, a Chinese sports channel.
The financing round, which was conducted in two parts, values the entertainment business at RMB2.9 billion. Shenzhen Fortune Link and Prometheus Capital, a PE fund set up by the son of Jianlin Wang, Wanda's chairman, also participated alongside several high-net-wealth individuals, according to a statement posted on LeTV's official Weibo microblog.
Wanda and Prometheus hold a combined of 11.49% stake in the film and Yunfeng owns 7.82%. Fortune Link picked up a 6.34% interest, a filing showed. Shenzhen-listed online video firm Leshi Internet Information & Technology retains about 10% of LeTV Sports, while its affiliate Lele Interactive becomes the controlling shareholder.
LeTV Sports, a spin-off from Leshi Internet Information & Technology, owns broadcast and media rights to 121 events in 17 sports categories, and has 4,000 matches for live broadcast. The company is also involved in program production across different sports events including football, basketball, tennis and golfs.
"The business model of LeTV Sports accords to our philosophy of investment. We will help LeTV Sports to become a world-class company by providing all sorts of support. Not only in capital commitment, we will also help LeTV Sports in business development strategies, company management and brand-building," said Jessica Xia, managing director at Yunfeng, in the statement.
In October, China's State Council announced a guideline to support the domestic sports industry. It will introduce more private capital in addition to providing its own financial support, with a view to creating an industry worth RMB5 trillion by 2025.
Yunfeng, a private equity firm set up by Jack Ma and David Yu, founders of Alibaba Group and Target Media, respectively, raised around $1.1 billion for its second fund in May last year. Alibaba committed $100 million to the fund.
In June of last year, Alibaba paid $192 million for a 50% stake in local football team Guangzhou Evergrande. Meanwhile, in February Wanda agreed to buy Infront Sports & Media, a Swiss sports marketing firm with exclusive rights to broadcast FIFA events from 2015 to 2022, from European PE firm Bridgepoint for EUR1.05 billion ($1.2 billion).
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