Friday, January 9, 2009

It's Official ! Disney confirms Shanghaî Disneyland !

Associated Press announced 45 minutes ago that the WDC officially confirmed the joint venture with the Shanghaî government for a future $3.59 billion Shanghaî Disneyland project.
They both will submit the project to China central government for final approval. I don't want to be too optimistic, but i think the most difficult is done. Also, the important words in the text below are numbers: $3,59 Billion. With this amount of money, we can now be sure that Shanghaî Disneyland will not be a small park, but a real big one, just like it should be. Here is the Associated Press release:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Walt Disney Co. said Friday that it was going to submit a plan to build a new theme park in China in a joint venture with the Shanghai government.

The family entertainment giant released a statement confirming its plans at about the same time as The Wall Street Journal released a story on its Web site that said Disney was working with Shanghai to build a $3.59 billion park to open as early as 2014.

A Disney spokesman declined to comment on the Journal story.

"Discussions have been ongoing about the feasibility of a theme park project in China," said Leslie Goodman, a spokeswoman for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, in the statement.

"As part of this lengthy process, we worked on a joint application report with the Shanghai government which will be submitted to the central government for review. No deal has been signed, no project has been approved."

Disney shares were down 35 cents, or 1.5 percent, at $22.55 in Friday afternoon trade.

The Journal said Disney planned to take a 43 percent stake in Shanghai Disneyland, while a holding company owned by the local government would own 57 percent, citing unnamed sources.

The first phase of the project, on about 1.5 square kilometers near Shanghai's Pudong International Airport, would include a theme park, plus a hotel and shopping development and would be built over six years, the paper said.

Text: copyright Associated Press

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200901072209DOWJONESDJONLINE001004_FORTUNE5.htm

C'est pas encore signé !

Alain Littaye said...

Si vous avez lu le texte, vous constaterez que je n'ai pas dit que c'est déja signé, mais que le plus dur était probablement fait. Mais pour ça, evidemment, il fallait lire le texte...
En outre, le lien que vous donnez de la dépèche de CNN date D'HIER. Or, HIER Disney maintenait qu'il n'y avait rien de fait et c'est AUJOURD'HUI que Disney a confirmé le contraire, fidèle à leurs habitudes de nier tout accord tant qu'ils n'ont pas décidé que c'était le jour pour faire l'annonce.

Matt said...

Great coverage, Alain. This is pretty exciting!

Anonymous said...

I want a south american disneylaaaand :(