Songcheng Performing Arts announced it will raise one billion RMB (approx: US$161 million) to set up an investment fund for developing online operations. However, much of the company’s investment and acquisition focus will still be offline, and 10 investment projects will be implemented within two to three years, according to Songcheng’s vice president Hongming Huang.
Mr. Huang said the investment fund will mainly be used to enrich and improve Songcheng’s online operations on 6 rooms and complete its O2O entertainment business ecosystem. Songcheng acquired performing arts online platform 6 rooms for RMB2.602 billion in March. 6.cn is the largest performing arts website in China, according to data of iRsearch’s iUserTracker.
He also said some of the projects are already activated and they are mostly in Beijing, where the operation hub of the fund and 6 rooms are based, to leverage industry resources and strategic synergy of information. Using a fund to expand online operation will facilitate project incubation.
He emphasized that the scale of 6 rooms is already enough for Songcheng’s present online development and the company will mainly focus on offline development in the future.
“Apart from our Fuzhou Maritime Silk Route attraction project, our Romance of the Song Dynasty theatrical production will debut in Taishan soon, and we are currently negotiating for projects in Yangshuo and Xian. We are also expanding overseas in Singapore and Macau and are negotiating the acquisition of a European theater management group that has over 40 theaters in the continent,” Mr. Huang said.
Songcheng has been mapping out its investment and acquisition since the end of last year. It formed a strategic partnership with Beijing Performance and Arts Group in December last year, set up a wholly-owned subsidiary in Hong Kong, acquired 6 rooms last March, invested in the Jiuzhaogou Rongzhong Erjia Cultural Productions in April and the Romance of the Song Dynasty in Fuzhou. This investment fund will give another boost to its aggressive expansion.(Translation by David)
