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By LAURIE BURKITT
Jan. 6, 2016 1:48 a.m. ET
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BEIJING—China’s Dalian Wanda Group Co. is investing 15 billion yuan ($2.3 billion) in hospital developments in China, a first foray into the health-care sector for the property and entertainment conglomerate as the government urges the expansion of private health care.
The investment will go toward building three hospitals in the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Chengdu and Qingdao, Wanda said in a statement Wednesday.
It is part of a 10-year hospital partnership that Wanda is striking with U.K.-based health-care operator International Hospitals Group, which will manage the hospitals, the British Embassy said.
Wanda’s statement referred to a “global” partnership, though left unclear whether there are plans for additional hospitals outside China.
The announcement came during a two-day visit to China by a U.K. delegation led by Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.
The hospitals investment is a turnaround from Wanda’s previously stated plans to cut its reliance on China’s flagging real-estate market. The company said last year it would put more effort into investing in financial services and e-commerce services, and announced plans to close some of its retail business amid economic shifts and weak demand.
Wanda’s partnership with IHG is seeking to tap into China’s efforts to create more private hospitals in a country where public facilities are overcrowded and underfunded. It is also targeting China’s growing numbers of wealthy and middle-class citizens looking for premium alternatives to packed waiting rooms at public hospitals.
Wanda Chairman Wang Jianlin said that the hospitals will serve affluent patients.
The Qingdao hospital will be located within one of its largest developments in China, a multibillion-dollar theme park and film-studio project that Mr. Wang has billed as the world’s largest such development.
It is expected to be completed by 2018, Wanda said. Construction of the Shanghai and Chengdu facilities will be under way in the first quarter of this year, the company added.
Other private health-care companies have already begun to move into or expand in the market, such as China’s Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co.
Yet many have faced obstacles, such as difficulties in linking up with China’s national insurance system that would enable patients to use their government insurance coverage.
China has long faced a major doctor shortage and many public hospitals, which control the doctors’ employment, have been unwilling to let doctors move to the private sector.
IHG plans to staff hospitals partially with foreign specialists that it will bring to China, Wanda said.
Write to Laurie Burkitt at laurie.burkitt@wsj.com
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