‘No money from mainland China’ behind Hong Kong bid for Taiwan-based Apple Online
- Kenny Wee says he is the sole owner of the company hoping to own the Taipei-based news site
- If successful, he will focus on soft news content, site quotes Wee as saying
Kenny Wee, owner of Avengers Limited, one of the potential buyers of the Taipei-based site, told the news website on Friday he was the sole owner of the company and would not transfer a stake to anyone outside Taiwan.
This is not Wee’s first tilt at buying the site – he tried to buy it and Hong Kong-based newspaper Apple Daily from parent company Next Digital in 2017, but failed.
“I believed Jimmy Lai would not have considered our deal [in 2017] if [my company] had involved any ‘red capital’,” Wee told Apple Online, referring to financing from mainland China.
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Wee, who was the operator of the free Hong Kong Metro Daily newspaper from 2013 to 2017, said his renewed offer to buy the Apple Online news site was put on hold by Next Digital last year.
Wee told Apple Online that he was not a newcomer to takeover bids and promised to maintain the site’s tradition of “political neutrality” since its founding, Apple Online reported.
Wee said he would respect the newsroom’s long-standing political position of supporting neither the ruling Democratic Progress Party, nor the opposition Kuomintang.
“I am not interested in politics,” Apple Online quoted Wee as saying.
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Wee, 49, who made his initial fortune in catering, said he was a regular reader of the media group’s publications from his youth and contributed to one of its food columns.
He said that if successful in his bid, he would focus on entertainment, food, tourism and soft news content, Apple Online reported.
