Shanghai Oriental Pearl Group, a listed media company, has lately announced the plan to invest approximately €18M in Infront Sports& Media, a leading sports marketing company acquired by Wanda Group, as part of efforts in promoting sports media.

Shanghai Oriental Pearl will follow the steps of Wanda and China Media Capital (CMC) to get a small amount of shares of Infront.

Under the deals Shanghai Oriental Pearl and CMC will jointly acquire 5%, at maximum, of Infront’s stocks.

The partnership with Infront is seen by Shanghai Oriental Pearl as an approach to promote their IPTV services as Infront is rich in rights of a range of sporting events.

Football events, particularly, are important for the investor since the sport is in dramatic rise in China. Consequently, the rights of FIFA World Cup, including 2018 Russia World Cup and 2022 Qatar World Cup, are seriously selling point for the investor.