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China tycoon who lost $32 billion tries to salvage an empire

InternationalMar 21. 2021A closed AMC movie theater in Tucson, Ariz., in June 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Cheney Orr.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Shirley Zhao, Venus Feng, Rebecca Choong Wilkins

Wang Jianlin used to be Asia’s richest person, busy expanding his Dalian Wanda Group Co. by acquiring trophy assets overseas, all aided by easy credit.

Now the 66-year-old doesn’t even figure among China’s top 30 richest people, having lost about $32 billion of his personal fortune in less than six years — the most for any tycoon in that period. As Wang seeks to cut the group’s total debt from 362 billion yuan ($56 billion) and turn his entertainment-to-property empire around, he’s facing skeptical bond investors.

Braced for a wall of maturing onshore notes peaking this year, some of Wanda’s dollar bonds were among the first to tumble earlier this month, when a broader decline hit the Asian credit market. The selloff, partly triggered by concerns over the looming payments, came as a warning from investors eager to see how Wang will manage to steer his group clear of the debt risks that convulsed peers such as HNA Group Co., China Evergrande Group and Anbang Group Holdings Co.

“The group’s liquidity is a key consideration for investors,” said Dan Wang, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. A representative for Wanda didn’t respond to requests for comment on the debt risks.

Wanda’s Wang, who once purchased Spanish soccer club Atletico Madrid as part of the binge-buying and aspired to compete with Walt Disney Co., is still shedding some of those assets. The latest came last week, when Wanda gave up control of AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., with its stake now representing less than 10% of the world’s largest movie-theater chain. Its chief executive officer said the company would be governed by a wide group of shareholders, and the stock has surged more than 42% in the past three days.

Despite the disposals following a government crackdown on credit-fueled expansion, Wanda Group’s debt as of June ballooned to the highest since 2017. The pandemic has only added to the woes, dealing a blow to its cinemas, malls, theme parks, hotels and sports events.

As China stabilizes its economy after containing the virus, the reopening of movie theaters and malls is providing Wang the much-needed time to steady his ship. He’s pressing ahead with a strategy he’s advocated for years, called the “asset-light” model, to reduce leverage.

That means spending less by cutting back on land purchases. Dalian Wanda Commercial Management Group Co., one of the world’s biggest mall operators that accounts for almost half of the group’s revenue, will stop buying plots starting this year and license its brand to partners instead, the company’s President Xiao Guangrui told mainland media in September.

“Wanda had no real alternative to its new asset-light strategy,” said Brock Silvers, chief investment officer at Kaiyuan Capital in Hong Kong, who doesn’t hold any Wanda unit shares or bonds. “The company’s debts were unsustainable.”

The effect of the pandemic on Wanda has been astounding.

Movie producer and cinema operator Wanda Film Holding Co. said it may have racked up a record $1 billion in net loss last year. Despite becoming a favorite in the recent Reddit-fueled share rally, AMC warned several times it was near the brink of insolvency and reported its worst-ever annual loss as revenue plunged 77%. Wanda Commercial Management said sales and profit fell nearly 50% in the first nine months of 2020, while Wanda Sports Group Co.’s American depositary receipts were delisted in January after losing more than two-thirds of their value since they began trading in July 2019.

Even if Wanda’s businesses tide over the global health crisis, there’s no certainty creditors will be kind after the developments at other indebted Chinese conglomerates such as HNA, Evergrande and lately at Suning Appliance Group Co.

In an offering circular in September, Wanda told investors that the group’s level of indebtedness may “adversely affect” some operations. The conglomerate is also facing tighter credit rules in the real estate sector as Chinese regulators look to curb financial risk.

Wanda and its units raised about 48.2 billion yuan in local and offshore debt last year, the most since 2016. A part of it was used to pay older obligations as the group needs to refinance or repay about 32 billion yuan of domestic bonds due in 2021.

While the group’s dollar bonds have almost erased their losses since tumbling earlier this month — their worst week in almost a year — credit traders cited concerns over the group’s maturing local bonds and a selloff in some of its onshore notes.

Wanda Commercial Management’s debt is rated non-investment grade by Fitch Ratings, S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service.

In his heyday, Wang — a former People’s Liberation Army soldier — jetted around in his Gulfstream G550 private plane, paying top prices for assets including a luxury property in Beverly Hills, Hollywood studio Legendary Entertainment and One Nine Elms in London, one of Europe’s tallest residential towers.

His fortune took a dive as China started to crack down on such expansion and capital outflows. His wealth has shrunk to about $14 billion from a peak of $46 billion in 2015, when he was crowned Asia’s richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

“Wanda gained surprisingly little from its period of unconstrained investment opportunity,” said Kaiyuan Capital’s Silvers. “The company has since been quicker to shed assets than other conglomerates, but it still has far to go.”

The asset-light strategy would help generate sustainable recurring rental income for Wanda Commercial Management, the “cash cow” of the group, said Chloe He, corporate-rating director at Fitch. It can also prevent the company from committing heavy capital expenditure and taking on too much debt, she added.

“This is going to be very helpful for them to deleverage in the future, provided they don’t invest in something else,” He said.

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In this Nigerian city, Pfizer phobia looms over the vaccine rollout

InternationalMar 21. 2021A makeshift pharmacy at Kano state’s Infectious Diseases Hospital in 2000 is adorned with stickers promoting American drug companies. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Michael S. Williamson

By The Washington Post · Ibrahim Garba, Danielle Paquette

KANO, Nigeria – By the time Pfizer arrived, the meningitis epidemic had struck hundreds of children, leaving many dead or partially paralyzed.

The American pharmaceutical giant pledged to fight the 1996 outbreak in West Africa while testing a new drug, enrolling 200 stricken young patients in a clinical trial. Eleven died of the brain infection – an outcome Pfizer said could not have been prevented – and families in Kano, along with the state government, later received millions of dollars in a lawsuit settlement.

Now the memory looms over the coronavirus vaccine rollout in Nigeria’s second-largest city, sowing doubts around foreign-made shots that officials are rushing to distribute.

“I don’t trust anything from the West,” said Abubakar Sadiq Sulaiman, a 20-year-old college student in Kano, “because of what happened here.”

Vaccine fears driven by the history of medical experimentation in Africa threaten to undermine the battle to end the pandemic, health officials say, as several nations kick off inoculation campaigns this month.

Nigeria has sought to soothe anxieties, deploying teams of public health educators to meet with religious leaders, village chiefs, shop owners, fishermen – voices with sway in their communities. Hesitancy to accept medicine from overseas slowed polio eradication in some areas, and leaders don’t want to see a repeat.

But videos invoking the Pfizer trial and other controversial cases continue to circulate on WhatsApp and Twitter.

“We cannot just dismiss the skepticism,” said Faisal Shuaib, head of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, which is in charge of the rollout. “We have to recognize that people have their own concerns. We need to listen to them, and then we have to do the extra work that is required.”

A recent survey by the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of 15,000 people across 15 African nations found that 79% would take a coronavirus vaccine if it were safe – but a quarter thought it would be unsafe. The Nigerians polled were slightly more reluctant to accept a shot at 76%.

An Afrobarometer survey of neighboring countries – Benin, Liberia, Senegal, Niger and Togo – uncovered a far less optimistic outlook: Just 4 in 10 said they’d probably try to get vaccinated, according to the early March findings.

Mistrust is rooted in a variety of factors, researchers say, including painful medical encounters of the past. Western scientists have long faced accusations of exploiting poverty, weak access to health care and flimsy clinical trial oversight in the developing world to fast-track cures.

American researchers, for instance, gave placebo pills to pregnant women with HIV during 1994 trials of a drug meant to stop mother-to-child transmission in Zimbabwe. About 1,000 babies contracted the virus despite the availability of a proven regimen, triggering global backlash.

Even during the pandemic, a French doctor sparked outrage by suggesting on television that the first coronavirus vaccines be tested somewhere in Africa, where people “don’t protect themselves.”

An ill man is carried into the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Kano, Nigeria, in 2000. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Michael S. Williamson

Then there are the scars of the Pfizer trial in Kano.

The ancient walled city of 4.1 million in Nigeria’s north was the epicenter of a meningitis epidemic that killed more than 15,000 people across West Africa.

Researchers camped for weeks at a local field hospital, administering an experimental antibiotic called Trovan – which was not yet approved in the United States – to 100 children and infants with brain infections. They gave the standard treatment to 100 others.

At the same hospital, a Doctors Without Borders team worked only to save lives. Several expressed concerns about Pfizer’s work to The Washington Post in a 2000 investigation.

“In an epidemic, where you have a very high number of cases who will die, you don’t go and experiment,” one said. “You are talking about human beings, after all.”

The young patients arrived in grave shape, The Post investigation found: Some could no longer talk or move their limbs, and it was unclear if their parents – all of whom were under extreme stress – truly understood they had options. Pfizer said its researchers obtained verbal consent.

“The local Nigerian nurses explained – in the native language, Hausa – the details of the study to parents or guardians, including that participation was voluntary,” the company said in a statement.

Five children died after receiving Pfizer’s experimental antibiotic. Others developed signs of arthritis – though there is no evidence the drug caused it. Six more died while taking the standard treatment. Pfizer has maintained that the children died of meningitis.

“The 1996 Trovan clinical trial was approved by U.S. and Nigerian health officials, was conducted with the consent of parents or guardians,” the company said in a statement, “and the treatment saved lives and proved to be at least as effective as the gold standard treatment available at the time.”

Some medical experts questioned why the company did not switch to the proven pills when it was clear the young patients were approaching death.

Pfizer said Trovan was “at least as effective as the gold standard treatment,” adding, “There is no basis on which to conclude that a change in treatment would have improved outcomes.”

The Food and Drug Administration never approved Trovan for the care of children in the United States. The drug was later linked to reports of liver damage and deaths in adults. European regulators outlawed it entirely.

Fury erupted in Nigeria.

Pfizer conducted “an illegal trial of an unregistered drug,” a Nigerian panel of medical experts wrote, according to a document The Post obtained in 2006, and a “clear case of exploitation of the ignorant.”

The state of Kano and the Nigerian federal government filed criminal and civil lawsuits against Pfizer in 2007. Two years later, the company agreed to pay $75 million to the state and relatives of children who died or were disabled during the trial.

One of the settlement recipients, a 70-year-old man, recalls feeling hopeful in 1996 when a neighbor told him about the American doctors in town helping children. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he signed a nondisclosure agreement to receive the settlement money.

He didn’t question anyone’s motives. His sole focus was saving his 4-year-old daughter. Today, she cannot walk and requires full-time care.

“I was excited that the treatment was free, but that excitement was short-lived,” he said. “She lost the function of her limbs. Our happiness vanished into thin air.”

The experiment shaped public perception of Western drugs in the region. Parents told their children about it. Teachers lectured about Pfizer in classrooms. Pundits spoke of Western physicians seeking human guinea pigs.

“If I had an enemy, I would not let him take their drugs,” said Najib Ibrahim, a 19-year-old tailor in Kano.

By 2003, three northern states – including Kano – were boycotting polio vaccination campaigns, citing, among other reasons, the Pfizer trial. The resistance added years to Nigeria’s fight against the virus.

So public health officials have doubled down on coronavirus vaccine safety messaging even as recent surveys show rising confidence.

“We’ve been confronted with this problem,” said Chikwe Ihekweazu, director of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control in the capital, Abuja. “We know how much of an impact it had – how much it took us back. We can’t take anything for granted.”

President Muhammadu Buhari received his jab live on television, urging viewers to follow his lead. The nation aims to inoculate 80 million people this year, starting with doses from AstraZeneca through the World Health Organization’s Covax initiative.

Pfizer shots are expected to arrive, officials said, once Nigeria ramps up its ultracold storage capacity.

“Pfizer’s vaccine and the other vaccines are outperforming everybody’s wildest expectations,” said Ihekweazur. “It’s how we will save lives and end this pandemic.”

By Monday, the country had recorded 161,000 cases and 2,013 deaths after enduring a second wave this winter. Officials say the national surveillance system offers only a conservative estimate.

One in 5 people in Lagos state alone – a metropolitan sprawl of 21 million – may have caught the coronavirus by last October, according to a recent antibodies survey from the Nigeria Center for Disease Control. That would be more cases than every African country combined has confirmed.

In Kano, more than 500 medical clinics are being transformed into vaccination centers. The city received its first 200,000 shots in early March.

Local health officials are preparing for the deliveries with “fact and myth” seminars, hoping to boost enrollment.

Musa Abdullahi Sufi, a public health doctor, estimates that 20% of Kano residents would be ready today to accept a dose.

“But that will move to 80 percent,” he said, “once we build more trust.”

Some in town say that hope is futile.

Abdul Murtala, a 45-year-old trader, remembers reading about the 1996 Pfizer trial as the details emerged. The experience changed him, he said.

“Pfizer reminds me of recklessness with human lives,” he said. “It makes me want to forever avoid receiving vaccines from foreign establishments.”

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Pakistan’s prime minister contracts coronavirus two days after his first vaccine dose

InternationalMar 21. 2021

By The Washington Post · Shaiq Hussain, Susannah George

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, tested positive for the coronavirus Saturday, two days after receiving his first dose of a vaccine, raising fears among health professionals that the news could heighten vaccine skepticism in a country already deeply wary of inoculation.

Khan was injected with China’s Sinopharm vaccine on Thursday and was probably infected before then, according to Pakistan’s Health Ministry. The Sinopharm vaccine requires two doses about a month apart and can take up to 21 days after the second injection to become fully effective.

Minutes after the news broke of Khan testing positive, debate about the vaccine’s effectiveness heated up on social media in Pakistan and Sinopharm began trending here on Twitter.

The Health Ministry quickly responded that the prime minister was not fully vaccinated when he contracted the virus.

“He only got the first dose merely two days ago which is too soon for any vaccine to become effective. Antibodies develop two to three weeks after the second dose of two-dose covid vaccine,” it said in a tweet.

But doctors and experts fear such statements will not be enough.

“In Pakistan, we already have skepticism, conspiracy theories and negative propaganda about vaccines,” said Javed Akram, one of the country’s top doctors and the vice chancellor of the University of Health Sciences, Lahore.

“Look at what people think of the vaccine for polio, a disease which has been eliminated across the world, nearly,” he said. Many Pakistanis refuse to allow their children to get a polio vaccination because of allegations spread by hard-line religious leaders that it will render them infertile. Pakistan remains one of just two countries in the world where polio is endemic.

“Imran Khan tested positive even after receiving the vaccine, this shows that vaccines imported into Pakistan are of no use,” read one tweet by a Pakistani user from Peshawar who identified himself as Lawangeen Khan.

Another user agreed that the prime minister’s infection proves the vaccine fails to protect against the virus.

Khan from Peshawar added, “May God recover him [from his illness] soon.”

Some trials have shown China’s Sinopharm to be less effective than its Western counterparts, but others have shown that its efficacy is on par with that of vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. However, little clinical data on Sinopharm has been released publicly.

China was the first country to provide Pakistan with coronavirus vaccines, a sign of growing ties between the two. The country also completed trials for the drug that drew thousands of participants, despite fears and skepticism.

Pakistan is experiencing a third wave of coronavirus infections and imposed new lockdown measures Saturday after recording nearly 4,000 new cases, the highest in a single day in eight months.

The number of daily hospital admissions and people receiving critical care is rising fast, Asad Umar, the minister leading the government’s response to the coronavirus, warned in a tweet. He said if Pakistanis do not comply with the current restrictions, a tighter lockdown will be imposed.

“Please be very very careful. The new strain spreads faster and is more deadly,” he said, referring to the variant of the coronavirus first detected in the United Kingdom.

Khan’s positive test was announced by Faisal Sultan, his aide, who said in a tweet that the Pakistani leader is self-isolating at home but did not elaborate on his condition.