Evergrande invests for expansion

'Most valuable real estate brand' gets controlling stake in auto sales firm

China's Evergrande Group, a Fortune 500 company, announced it has signed a strategic deal with Urumqi-based Guanghui Group to expand cooperation in developing automobile sales, energy, real estate, logistics and related industries in the coming years.

According to a statement Evergrande released on Sunday night, Guanghui will transfer 23.87 percent of its shares, valued at 6.68 billion yuan ($974 million), to Evergrande within seven working days.

Evergrande has also agreed to inject 7.81 billion yuan in capital into Guanghui, according to the statement.

"After Evergrande's capital investment into Guanghui is completed, Evergrande will hold 40.96 percent of Guanghui's shares worth a total of 14.49 billion yuan, becoming the second-largest shareholder of Guanghui Group," the statement said.

In June, Evergrande Health Industry Group, a Hong Kong-listed company of Evergrande Group, acquired a 45 percent stake in Faraday Future, a California-based electric carmaker, for HK$6.75 billion ($864 million) through Hong Kong's Season Smart.

Season Smart took a 45 percent stake in a joint venture with struggling Faraday Future following a $2 billion capital injection last year.

Evergrande has now replaced Season Smart as the biggest shareholder of Faraday Future, with a 45 percent stake. Faraday Future's original investors retained a combined 33 percent stake, with the remaining 22 percent of company equity distributed to company executives.

Brand Finance, a London-based brand valuation consultancy, said earlier that Evergrande has now become the world's most valuable real estate brand, with its brand value reaching $16.2 billion after an eye-watering 118 percent increase last year.

Evergrande is China's second-largest property developer and the owner of the Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao Football Club, which won both the Chinese Football Association Super Cup and the Chinese Super League championship last season.

The group is the seventh-largest privately run company in the mainland with revenue of 311.02 billion yuan last year, according to a list of China's top 500 private enterprises co-released by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and Liaoning provincial government at the 2018 China Top 500 Private Enterprises Summit in August.