Hong Kong’s government may sell its 57 percent stake in the city’s recently opened Walt Disney Co. theme park, the Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper The Standard reported Thursday.
The government may divest its interest in Hong Kong Disneyland “at an appropriate time when it is in the overall economic interests of Hong Kong to do so,” Secretary for Financial Services & the Treasury Frederick Ma said at a conference Thursday.
Ma didn’t give a timetable for the potential sale, The Standard said, and his comments surprised some of the lawmakers assembled at the meeting. A number of legislators said it was too soon to make a decision on the issue.
The Hong Kong government invested HK$25 billion ($3.22 billion) in a 57 percent stake in Disney’s first new overseas theme park in 12 years. Included in the investment, was HK$13.6 billion the government spent on roads and other infrastructure, HK$1.6 billion on land acquisition, HK$3.3 billion on equity, and a HK$6.1 billion loan extended for the project, Ma said.
Hong Kong Disneyland, Disney’s 11th theme park which opened on Sept. 12, is the only one of its theme parks to enlist a government as a shareholder, the paper said.
