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SCMP Reporter

TVE (Holdings) has sold the former site of Television Broadcasts' studios at 77 Broadcast Drive, Kowloon Tong, to an unnamed buyer for about $565.38 million.

  A subsidiary, Dunstone, said the vendor had paid $50 million as a deposit and had four days in which to pay a further $6.5 million as a partial down payment and $56.5 million in part payment.

  TVE said yesterday that 'an agreement was entered into with a purchaser following an invitation to tender made by the company'.

  Besides these three lump sum payments, the independent buyer, which is not associated to the directors and substantial shareholders of TVE, had agreed to pay the remainder of the sale price by September 18.

  'The directors are of the opinion that this represented the highest bid in the tender process and is fair and reasonable under the present market conditions,' TVE said.

   The rumour mill had been spinning with reports that TVE had found a suitor interested in buying the original site of one of Hong Kong's pioneering television stations.

  The property has been virtually vacant for the past two to three years because TVB moved its administration and production facilities to a new multi-million dollar complex, TV City, in Clearwater Bay.

  TVE said it had originally intended to redevelop the property for rental purposes.

  However the directors later decided to sell rather than redevelop.

  'Having compared the benefits to be gained in redeveloping as against disposing of the property at the above price, we decided that disposal was in the best interest of the company,' the company said.

  TVE said the net loss attributable to the property during the past two years amounted to $661,000 and $4.1 million, principally because of interest charges on a bank loan secured over the property.

  Directors estimated that the sale of the asset would provide the company and its subsidiaries with a net profit of $546.7 million.

  The company said it had no major investment plans and would 'have a substantial surplus of cash over its expected future requirements'.

  The directors said they would approve a special dividend of $1.30 per share to shareholders amounting to $546 million.

   It would be paid in November.



Former TVB studio site nets $565m