Back in 2014, an ambitious property mogul named Wang Jianlin set out plans to work with up-and-coming tech player Tencent to carve out a slice of the burgeoning online-to-offline retail space for his Wanda Group empire.
It didn't quite work out. That venture, ffan.com, never took off and investments from Tencent and search giant Baidu never actually came to fruition.
Wanda and Wang have been through the mill since then, with its overseas asset-buying spree catching negative attention from regulators. But the O2O idea hasn't gone away, and on Monday Wanda revived its O2O ambitions, with a familiar partner in the form of Pony Ma's Tencent....
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