Walt Disney has agreed to finance a HK$3.63bn (US$468m) expansion of its struggling theme park in Hong Kong to lure more visitors, following two years of “challenging” negotiations with the territory's government.
Disney, which has a joint venture with the Hong Kong government to operate the park, will inject HK$3.5bn of new capital to fund the expansion. The US company will put an additional HK$2.7bn into the project by converting its loans in the partnership to equity.
The Hong Kong government will not invest any more money in the project but said that a large part of its lending to the venture would be converted into shares. The government's equity stake will fall from 57 per cent to 52 per cent.