Shanghai share holders

[CP_alum08]

I was reading about the Shanghai announcement and something caught my eye. It was said that Disney will own 43% of the property and everything on it, while their building partner, Shanghai Shendi Group, will own the remaining 57%

Now, I know Im pretty ignorant when it comes to this type of thing, but does this mean Disney won't technically own Shanghai Disneyland? Are the rest of the parks/resorts like this too? It just seemed odd to me. I figured Disney Co. would have owned the majority.

 

[GOT2SAMMIES]

I think Disney Tokoyo is the same way (at least I read this somewhere)... Disney doesn;t own the park but they get royalities and franchise fee(maybe). Not sure about Disneyland Paris..

 

[Lucky]

Disney owns about 40% of Eurodisney.

Even if Disney had majority ownership in Shanghai, it wouldn't imply the same control rights as in other countries. As McD's and other Western companies have discovered, property rights in China aren't always honored.

 

[menamechris]

I have to admit that I am rather ignorant when it comes to knowing about all these details too, but I was under the impression that Disney only had a minority ownership/interest in all of the foreign resorts/parks. I am sure someone knows all the details about this.

 

[Snoopy]

Disneyland and Walt Disney World are the only two resorts that are completely owned by Disney. As for the rest:

-Tokyo Disneyland is 100% owned and operated by the Oriental Land Company (with, as GOT2SAMMIES pointed out, Disney getting licensing/franchise fees at around 10% each year).
-Disneyland Paris is owned by Euro Disney S.C.A., a conglomerate that consists of Disney (with 39.78% of shares), Prince Alwaleed of Saudi Arabia (with 10%) and various other shareholders (with 50.22%).
-Hong Kong Disneyland is a joint venture between Disney and the Hong Kong government (I'm not sure of the percentages, but I believe that Disney holds the minority share).

 

[tampabrad]

If I am not mistaken, reguardless of how much of the Resort they own, Disney has creative control as to what goes in the parks. Everything is still designed by Disney Imagineers, the others write the checks. In the case of TDL, it is a good thing because you end up with a park like Tokyo DisneySea.

 

[WesternRiverExplorer]

^Somewhat. I believe Disney and WDI can design and pitch whatever they want, but the majority stakeholder still decides what gets built, the budget, etc. For Tokyo, I believe OLC has the final say in anything that goes into the parks, they may even be able to commission ideas from WDI and WDI-Creative Entertainment. On the other hand, Disney can likely negotiate things and push for certain designs to win out. It was rumored that HKDL was supposed to get a different third mini-land in its big expansion, Glacier Bay, but the HK Government had concerns that it would be too similar to something being built at Ocean Park, a lackluster (IMO) amusement park they also own or hold stake in (wrap your head around that one, the gov has stake in two parks that are in fairly direct competition). Then Rasulo supposedly pushed for them to instead build Toy Story crap. And now the beautiful vistas the park once offered will forever be marred by brightly colored, plastic-esque, junk. There's also the Pirate land that was apparently nixed by HK.

One thing I thought was interesting is that, while Shanghai Shendi will have 57% ownership of the resort, they are also setting up a management company that "will be responsible for creating, developing and operating the resort", and Disney will actually hold 70% of that. So it sounds like, to my untrained ears, while Shanghai will be footing the majority of the bill, they actually will not be following the previous model, and perhaps won't have much say in what goes into the park.