(Yicai Global) Dec. 26 -- Hunan TV & Broadcast, which tried to sell an oil painting to reverse losses and avoid being at risk of delisting from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, is looking to divest land after the art sale fell through.

Dowell Real Estate, a unit under property developer Chongqing Dima Industry, plans to buy up to 70 percent of Hunan TV subsidiary Hunan Shengteluopei Business Management for CNY1.05 billion (USD152 million), Dima said in a statement yesterday.

Hunan TV set up Shengteluopei in June this year with CNY10 million (USD1.5 million) in registered capital -- by the next month, it had negative net assets and was nearly CNY412,000 (USD59,800) out of pocket, with CNY630 million in total assets. However, the unit owns land use rights to parcels spanning 165,800 square meters in Yuehu, a subdistrict in Changsha, Hunan province.

The sale is critical for Hunan TV, which will be red-flagged on the SZSE next year if it posts a loss for 2018. It lost CNY464 million last year and despite revenue growing more than 25 percent to CNY7.3 billion (USD1.1 billion), it was down CNY135 million after the third quarter of this year.

It attempted to recoup the losses by selling Foolish Man Removes the Mountain, an oil painting by Chinese artist Xu Beihong, but abandoned the plan to avoid "misinterpretation" after the SZSE queried the move. The firm had been trying to sell the piece to an affiliate for CNY208 million (USD30 million), despite bidders at a public auction six months earlier being unwilling to meet a CNY190 million reserve.

Editor: James Boynton