Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on July 26, 2019

This article has been updated for accuracy.

KUALA LUMPUR After a major fall-out last year, Genting Malaysia Bhd’s much-delayed outdoor theme park is back on track and potentially even improved as not only will it  feature some of the popular characters from 21st Century Fox, but possibly even a number of Marvel’s — another Disney-owned brand.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday Genting Malaysia said it had arrived at a settlement with Fox Entertainment Group LLC, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp, FoxNext LLC, Twentieth Century Fox Inc (20th Century Fox) and Walt Disney Co (Disney) over the outdoor theme park.

“Genting Malaysia is currently updating its development and construction plans to complete the outdoor theme park utilising both Fox and non-Fox intellectual properties. The outdoor theme park shall also be renamed” said the group in the filing.

Recently, it is understood that three parties, including Marvel and US-based theme park brand Six Flags, approached Genting Malaysia to take over the spot vacated by 21st Century Fox — prompting market speculation of Marvel’s involvement in the theme park.

As at the time of writing, Marvel and Six Flags had yet to reply to queries by The Edge Financial Daily sent on July 14, 2019.

As part of the settlement announced by Genting, all parties in the dispute have agreed to fully resolve their disputes and dismiss all claims between one another, pending legal action in the US District Court for the California Central District.

Genting Malaysia, Fox and Disney signed a restated memorandum of agreement yesterday.

Genting Malaysia said the group is not expecting the settlement to have any material effect on its earnings, net assets and gearing for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2019.

The settlement comes some nine months after Genting Malaysia launched its suit against Fox and Disney.

On Wednesday, both Genting Malaysia and parent company Genting Bhd saw active trade following reports that the outdoor theme park would be opened sooner than its iinitial target of first quarter 2021.

In a client note, Maybank IB observed that Resorts World Genting had placed full-page job advertisements for its theme park in local newspapers for the last two weeks.

At the same time, the bank upgraded Genting Malaysia to a “buy” with a higher target price of RM3.80 from RM3.40 previously.

Shares in Genting Malaysia closed 0.81% or three sen lower yesterday to RM3.67 valuing the company at RM21.79 billion, while its parent Genting closed 0.44% or three sen higher to RM6.90 for a market capitalisation of RM26.75 billion.

Genting Malaysia had sought more than US$1 billion in damages in its suit against Fox as the latter had terminated its participation in the theme park because Disney did not want to be associated with the gaming business. The initial agreement to build the theme park in 2013, had come with the promise of intellectual property such as Ice Age, Life of Pi, Alien, Predator and Night at the Museum.

However, this deal was done before Disney bought Fox on March 20, 2019.

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