Corporate investment flooding into China’s sports sector
Kaisa and Alibaba have already created their own 10 billion yuan sports funds, and experts now expect more cash to be poured into new facilities
China’s sports industry is attracting record levels of corporate funding, as the central government continues to show its strong support for the sector.
The latest more comes from property giant Kaisa Group, which has just announced the creation of a 10 billion yuan 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 the domestic private equity firm Kaixin Capital, the group said on Monday.
“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,” said Lillian Chiou, an analyst with Standard & Poor’s.
In a similar move last year, e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba Group formed Alisports to boost its share of the domestic sports industry.
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 June this year, it then said it plans to set up a fund worth up to 10 billion yuan to focus on investment in sporting facilities. Its ultimate aim is to open thousands of sports venues in more than 100 Chinese cities. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.