Massive staff cuts have been made at its e-commerce arm as the Beijing-based Dalian Wanda Group returns to its core real-estate business model.

More than 1000 workers at Wanda Internet Technology Group have been issued termination notices, according to Chinese media outlet The Paper. Other sources have said the total staff cut figures are far higher, reports Variety magazine.

Some employees who joined less than a year ago were asked to “resign”, which means staff numbers may have fallen from 6000 to just 300, a 95 per cent reduction.

The Paper says Dalian Wanda chairman Wang Jianlin had high hopes for the technology arm, which focuses on home shopping, complementing the group’s shopping mall empire. He had hoped that by 2020 it would have annual revenues of more than $1.5 billion and be in a position to launch an IPO.

Wanda Group has declined to comment directly on the report.

Wanda, which emerged from property to build the world’s largest cinema empire, has been in retreat for several months following a government crackdown on over-aggressive corporate expansion.