Dalian Wanda, the Chinese retail conglomerate aiming for a listing in Hong Kong this month, has added pig farming to its expansive list of business units, which includes such diverse things as Chinese property and the popcorn sold in its chain of US cinemas.
中国零售综合企业大连万达(Dalian Wanda)开始进军养猪业。万达旗下业务繁多，既在中国开发房地产，也在美国其拥有的电影院线售卖爆米花，其地产子公司本月将在香港上市。
Yesterday the company announced a Rmb1bn ($163m) investment in pork production in Guizhou, China’s poorest province. The investment is being billed as a charitable donation, although the pork will eventually be sold in the group’s retail chain or partner stores, according to a Dalian Wanda statement.
万达昨日宣布，将向中国最贫穷省份贵州的猪肉生产领域投资10亿元人民币（合1.63亿美元）。万达在声明中将这笔投资宣传为扶贫捐助，但这些猪肉最终将在万达的零售连锁商店或合作商店销售。

Would-be investo­rs in the likely $3bn-$4bn initial public offering of a property division will scrutinise the investment for what it says about the company – which is either a cleverly diversified financial titan or, to its critics, a random grab-bag of investments across two continents.
大连万达商业地产(Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties)将赴港首次公开发行(IPO)，可能融资30亿美元至40亿美元。其潜在的股票投资者将审视万达最新这笔养猪场投资——它将说明万达究竟是一家明智多元化、财力雄厚的巨擘，还是批评者眼中的随意投资的大杂烩公司。
Wang Jianlin, Wanda’s billionaire founder, is China’s fourth-richest man, with a net worth of $13.2bn according to Forbes. He is upfront about the source of much of his wealth – cheap real estate sold by local governments anxious to attract developers.
根据《福布斯》(Forbes)的数据，万达亿万富翁创始人王健林在中国富豪榜上排名第四，净资产为132亿美元。他对自己很大一部分财富的来源——也就是由急切吸引开发商的地方政府出售的廉价房地产——相当坦率。
Among his business trophies are the 100 Wanda Plaza shopping centres, along with department stores, tourism businesses and chain of cinemas, in China, and AMC Entertainment, the second-largest cinema chain in the US, which he bought in 2012 for $2.6bn.
他的企业王国包括在中国的100座万达广场购物中心，以及百货商店、旅游公司和电影院，还包括它在2012年以26亿美元收购的美国第二大电影院线AMC娱乐(AMC Entertainment)。
Mr Wang plans to invest Rmb50bn to build an entertainment park in Qingdao, in eastern China, which will include a movie museum and 20 studios, scheduled for completion in 2017.
王健林计划在中国东部城市青岛投资500亿元人民币建设一座娱乐产业园，其中包括一家电影博物馆和20个摄影棚，计划2017年建成。
Then there is the matter of the $1.2bn his company spent on a plot of land in Beverly Hills, which Mr Wang is developing into an office from which to clinch Hollywood deals. He told Bloomberg on Monday he was in talks to buy a stake in Lions Gate Entertainment, the Canadian-US entertainment company whose shows include the Emmy award-winning drama Mad Men, and that he aimed to control 20 per cent of the global film market by 2020.
万达还投资了12亿美元在比弗利山购置地块。王健林正在这里设立一个办事处，用于处理万达在好莱坞的房地产交易。他周一还告诉彭博社(Bloomberg)，他正就购入加拿大-美国娱乐公司狮门娱乐(Lions Gate Entertainment Corp)部分股权进行谈判。狮门娱乐的作品包括获得艾美奖(Emmy)的电视剧《广告狂人》(Mad Men)。他还计划到2020年控制全球电影市场的20%。
“Many people come knock at my door, but Wanda is only interested in the big players and we want control,” said Mr Wang.
王健林表示：“很多人来敲我的门，但万达只对大企业感兴趣，我们希望获得控制权。”
When shares in Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties go on sale, investors will be forgiven if they ask where pig farming fits in with the company’s existing assets. But back-to-basics farming is something that has uniquely fascinated many of China’s most successful companies.
当大连万达商业地产的股票发售时，如果投资者问：养猪场与万达现有资产有什么关系？那也是是情有可原的。但中国很多最成功企业对于回归基本的养殖业特别感兴趣。
William Ding, founder of NetEase, the Chinese gaming company that operates World of Warcraft in the territory, opened a pig farm in 2011 and began selling pork online in exchange for vouchers. In 2013 Legend Holdings, parent company of the computer maker Lenovo, surprised investors when it began selling blue­berries and kiwifruit.
2011年，中国游戏公司网易(NetEase)创始人丁磊(William Ding)开设了一家养猪场，并开始在线销售猪肉，购买者可用兑换券支付。网易是《魔兽世界》(World of Warcraft)在中国的运营商。2013年，电脑制造商联想(Lenovo)的母公司联想控股(Legend Holdings)开始销售蓝莓和猕猴桃，令投资者感到意外。
Wanda’s venture in Guizhou would create 10,000 jobs, the company said, and “combine short-term and long-term goals, merging industry with education in a way that will eventually increase per capita income and poverty alleviation as a whole”.
万达表示，该公司在贵州的项目将创造1万个就业岗位，并将“长期与短期结合、产业与教育结合、提高人均收入与整体脱贫相结合”。
The project will recruit students from local technical schools, many of whom will go on to work at Wanda, according to the company. In China the labour of technical school students normally costs less than fully employed workers.
万达表示，该项目将从当地职业技术学校招聘学生，其中很多将在毕业后继续在万达工作。在中国，职业技术学校学生的劳动力成本要低于全职工人。
Chinese companies nearing an IPO have a tendency to make the most of their regulator-imposed “silent periods” by issuing many public announcements and staging PR stunts. Alibaba, the ecommerce giant, perfected the art of the not-so-silent silent period when it bought stakes in more than a dozen companies in the lead-up to its $25bn September IPO. The nearly weekly deals offered headlines, accompanied by a polite “no comment – silent period” from Alibaba.
即将启动IPO的中国企业往往会充分利用监管机构设定的“缄默期”，发布很多公开声明并上演公关噱头。电商巨擘阿里巴巴(Alibaba)深谙在缄默期不那么缄默的艺术，在今年9月的250亿美元IPO前夕，该公司购入了超过12家公司的股权，几乎每周都有交易登上新闻头条。而阿里巴巴的礼貌回应是“不做评论，在缄默期”。