Temasek and domestic banks team up to dismantle the world's top hotel giant

Recently, including 7 hotels under R&F Properties such as the Chengdu Ritz-Carlton and the Dalian Furong Hilton + Conrad, have been listed on judicial auction platforms, with a cumulative reserve-to-bid amount of 3.28 billion yuan.

This asset-disposal extravaganza, launched by overseas capital Temasek and more than a dozen domestic banks, has already reached its peak.

With cash flow drying up, the chairman restricted from leaving the country, and R&F Properties’ credit having completely collapsed—together with regulators’ requirement that banks accelerate the disposal of real-estate nonperforming assets—the hotels R&F Properties acquired from Wanda 10 years ago are now left with very little.

8.65 billion yuan Ritz-Carlton takes the lead

40 billion yuan worth of assets up for sale

As the first Ritz-Carlton hotel in Southwest China, it will undergo judicial disposal starting April 7 with a reserve-to-bid price of 865 million yuan.

The hotel’s main creditor is China Merchants Bank Guangzhou Branch, and it is also accompanied by the offshore-debt related beneficial interests of funds under Temasek.

China Merchants Bank’s creditor claims mainly come from two parts. First, when R&F Properties acquired 77 Wanda hotels in 2017 for 19.906 billion yuan, it obtained part of the funding through a syndicated loan led by China Merchants Bank Guangzhou Branch. As one of the core assets, the Chengdu Ritz-Carlton was included in the collateral schedule for that loan; the loan principal is about 580 million yuan, maturing in 2027, but due to R&F’s comprehensive debt default, the loan has already been moved into nonperforming disposal procedures ahead of schedule.

Second, subsequent operating loans also went overdue. From 2019 to 2021, to support hotel operations, R&F obtained 3 additional operating loans from China Merchants Bank using the revenue rights of the Chengdu Ritz-Carlton and a second mortgage over the property; the total principal was 120 million yuan, and all of them had been overdue by the first half of 2024.

Meanwhile, although Temasek is not the direct mortgagee of the hotel, because 68 R&F hotels (including the Chengdu Ritz-Carlton) were taken under receivership in 2024 by a receiver appointed by the High Court of Hong Kong, the Seatown fund under Temasek—the main holder of this offshore debt—also holds related beneficial interests in the disposal of the Chengdu Ritz-Carlton.

According to the coordination mechanism for domestic and offshore creditor claims, after auction proceeds repay the secured debts owed to China Merchants Bank Guangzhou Branch, the remaining funds must be distributed in proportion to offshore creditors to cover the overdue principal and interest on the offshore debt.

Together with Chengdu, the 7 hotels that R&F Properties is currently disclosing and that are about to go on auction are all “hard assets,” and the total reserve-to-bid amount is 3.28 billion yuan. Details are as follows:

1. Chengdu R&F Ritz-Carlton Hotel: the first Ritz-Carlton hotel in the Southwest region, located in the core business district on Shuncheng Avenue in Qingyang District, Chengdu, with a floor area of 53,300 square meters, 350 rooms, and land-use rights until 2063. Reserve-to-bid price: 865 million yuan; deposit: 86.55 million yuan. Scheduled to open for auction on April 7. Currently, 2,171 people have watched, but no one has registered.

2. Dongguan R&F Wanda Vista Hotel: located in the core area of Nancheng District, Dongguan, with an appraised value of 320 million yuan and a reserve-to-bid price of 224 million yuan. Scheduled for auction on April 15. The creditor is China Construction Bank Dongguan Branch.

3. Dalian R&F Hilton + Conrad Hotel asset package: this is the largest auction target at present, containing two upscale hotels. Appraised value: 2.5 billion yuan; reserve-to-bid price: 1.75 billion yuan. Scheduled to begin auction in early May. The creditor is a fund under Temasek and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Dalian Branch.

4. Kunming R&F Wanda Vista Hotel: appraised value: 449 million yuan; reserve-to-bid price: 314 million yuan; auction opening on March 30. The creditor is CITIC Bank Kunming Branch.

5. Foshan Nanhai R&F Plaza supporting hotel: appraised value: 280 million yuan; reserve-to-bid price: 196 million yuan; auction opening on April 10. The creditor is Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank.

6. Shanghai R&F Global Plaza supporting hotel: appraised value: 630 million yuan; reserve-to-bid price: 441 million yuan; auction opening on April 20. The creditor is Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Shanghai Branch.

7. Hefei R&F Wanda Jiahua Hotel: appraised value: 410 million yuan; reserve-to-bid price: 287 million yuan; auction opening on April 5. The creditor is Bank of Communications Hefei Branch.

Starting in the second half of 2025, banks have initiated judicial disposal of 68 hotels. So far, 16 hotels have been put up for auction one by one, clearing inventory at an average pace of selling 1–2 hotels per month.

Among them, 7 hotels—including Changsha Wamu, Zhengzhou Wamu, Quanzhou Wamu, Wuhan Jiahua, Wuxi Sheraton, and Hefei Westin—have already been successfully transacted.

Langfang Jiahua and Ningde Jiahua are still in the process of being sold off and failed to attract bids in auctions; they are expected to face a new round of auctions after price cuts.

Why are Temasek and the banks suddenly accelerating disposal?

According to R&F Properties’ 2025 half-year report and the company’s debt overdue announcements at the end of 2025, as of the end of 2025, the company’s total borrowings reached 104.52 billion yuan, including 975.9 billion yuan of short-term debt due within one year. Meanwhile, cash and cash equivalents on the books (including restricted funds) were only 35.1 billion yuan—so even interest couldn’t be covered, let alone the principal.

By the end of 2025, the overdue debt amount had already reached 36.81 billion yuan, of which overdue bank loans were about 14.2 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 40%.

More importantly, R&F’s hotel business has not only failed to generate profits but has continued to incur losses: it lost 459 million yuan in 2018, 1.008 billion yuan in 2019, 1.427 billion yuan in 2020, 1.422 billion yuan in 2021, and in 2024 it lost 2.619 billion yuan. These

hotels may appear to be operating normally, but the cash flow generated is so insufficient that it can hardly even cover their own operating costs, let alone repay such huge debts. As an insider at a bank put it: “We’ve already waited for two years and can’t see any sign of improvement. If we drag it on further, the assets will only become even less valuable.”

In addition, regulators have also imposed high pressure on banks’ real-estate nonperforming assets.

According to a report from 21st Century Business Herald last October: “For collateralized nonperforming assets of high-risk real-estate developers (such as R&F), once they are overdue for 1 year, judicial proceedings must be initiated within 6 months.”

A report from Securities Times in January 2026 also confirms this: “Starting in the second half of 2025, regulators will strengthen on-site supervision, requiring banks to ‘dispose of nonperforming loans to high-risk real-estate developers as far as possible and without exception,’ and strictly prohibit concealing or delaying risks through ways such as extensions, borrowing new loans to repay old ones, and inaccurate risk classifications.”

Finally, as an offshore core creditor, Temasek’s disposal logic is even more direct.

For offshore funds, R&F’s debt restructuring progress is slow, and disposing of domestic assets is uncertain. Rather than waiting for a restructuring plan, it is better to force auction execution directly through the court—even if sold at a discount, it can bring cash back the fastest.

Moreover, Temasek’s disposal actions also pressure domestic banks: if they do not act quickly, they may face the risk that assets are prioritized for disposal by offshore creditors, making it difficult to fully recover their own claims. This is also an important reason behind the “coordinated auctions” between domestic and offshore creditors.

Concentrated disposal may lead to

“the more auctions, the lower the price; the lower the price, the colder the market” situation

According to statistics from Maimian Research Institute, in the first half of 2025 there were 259 hotel forced-sale auction projects nationwide above the ten-million-yuan level; only 17 succeeded in transactions, with a transaction success rate of just 6.3%. And hotels under R&F are facing the same dilemma—among the 16 hotels that have already been auctioned, 2 failed in the auction, and the remaining 14, although 7 were successfully transacted, all relied on deep discounts, with an average discount rate exceeding 30%.

Right now, a large number of R&F’s high-end hotels are being brought to market in concentrated batches, causing oversupply. Auction success rates remain lackluster, even entering a vicious cycle of “the more auctions, the lower the price; the lower the price, the colder the market.”

This situation has already started to affect asset valuation estimates for hotels in the same area. For example, in Chengdu’s core business district, the original market appraisal value for high-end hotels was around 20,000 yuan per square meter, but the reserve-to-bid price of the Chengdu R&F Ritz-Carlton, when converted, comes to only 16,200 yuan per square meter—about 20% lower than the market price.

Insiders say that during refinancing of hotel assets in places like Chengdu and Wuhan, financial institutions now refer to the forced-sale auction prices of R&F hotels, leading to the overall valuations being pushed down and adding pressure to financing for other hotel owners.

But in the long run, the concentrated auctions of R&F hotels may also bring positive effects to the nonperforming asset market. The most critical point is that they activate transactions of special assets in the high-end hotel category, establishing a clear valuation anchor for the market.

Before this, because high-end hotels are heavy-asset businesses, there were few cases of large-scale, concentrated disposals. The market lacked clear pricing standards, so investors either did not dare to enter or bid chaotically.

And with R&F’s 16 hotels spanning different cities, different brands, and different sizes, their auction transaction prices provide valuable reference for the market: for five-star hotels in core cities and prime locations, the forced-sale discount rates are generally between 30% and 40%; discount rates in non-core cities may be even higher.

For example, the Kunming R&F Wanda Vista Hotel is up for auction at “starting from 70%.” The Dalian R&F Hilton + Conrad asset package is also up for auction at “starting from 70%.” These pricing benchmarks draw on the discount levels of already-transacted hotels in places such as Wuhan and Zhengzhou; they do not cause excessive losses to creditors, and they can also attract investors with strong capabilities.

In February 2026, among 73 hotels auctioned on Alibaba’s forced-sale auction platform, 18 billion-yuan-class targets saw 5 successful transactions; of these, 3 were R&F hotels. This shows that auctions of R&F hotels have already begun to attract professional investors and have boosted transaction activity for nonperforming assets in the high-end hotel sector.

AMC take-over; innovative disposal model

Among the hotels that R&F completed transactions for, Henan asset management took over the Zhengzhou R&F Wanda Vista Hotel at the end of 2025 through its wholly owned subsidiary at the auction starting price.

Henan asset management retains the original operating team and also injects funds to upgrade hotel guestrooms and banquet halls, introducing integrated business formats of “hotel + exhibitions and conferences” and “hotel + culture and tourism” to enhance profitability.

Previously, when banks disposed of hotel-type nonperforming assets, most of the time it was “sell it in one auction and done,” focusing only on whether cash could be recovered quickly and not considering issues related to subsequent operations, which led to many hotels experiencing operational discontinuity and having their brands withdrawn after the auction.

Therefore, the “auction + operations” model is becoming the key to solving the predicament of hotel nonperforming asset disposal.

Conclusion

In 2017, at the signing ceremony for the acquisition of Wanda hotels, Li Sixian said confidently, “We are the winners.”

Now, the number of hotels held by R&F has dropped to 19. Compared with the peak period when it held as many as 93 hotels in operation, it has shrunk by 80% over four years.

The countdown for the auction of the Chengdu R&F Ritz-Carlton Hotel has already begun, and hotels in Dalian, Kunming, and other places are also about to experience a turning point in their fate.

With these core assets changing hands, a once-glorious hotel empire is about to disappear from the historical stage, and a new market landscape is quietly taking shape amid this massive auction.

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