China’s sports industry is "attracting record levels of corporate funding, as the central government continues to show its strong support for the sector," according to Summer Zhen of the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST. The latest move comes from property firm Kaisa Group, which has just announced the creation of a 10B yuan ($1.5B) fund which is "likely to be invested in the building of intelligent stadiums and other training facilities," marking the firm’s "biggest expansion yet into sport." The fund is being jointly created by Kaisa Culture, a newly formed offshoot, its finance arm Kaisa Capital, and domestic private equity firm Kaixin Capital, the group said. Standard & Poor’s analyst Lillian Chiou said, "Despite China’s economic slowdown, sport-related consumption is booming as people’s personal income grows, as does their awareness of the importance of a healthy lifestyle." In a similar move last year, e-commerce firm Alibaba Group formed Alisports to "boost its share of the domestic sports industry." Wanda Group -- which is owned by China's richest man, Wang Jianlin -- has already invested $2B in "sports-related acquisitions." Within its 13th Five-Year Plan, the General Administration of Sport of China "has the goal of creating an industry" worth 3,000B yuan ($450B). The plan encourages local governments "to establish sports industry investment funds, similar to Kaisa and Alibaba, using private sector and public cash," and also to expand their sporting interests through "public-private-partnership financed projects" (SCMP, 9/7).
