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‘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
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A Hong Kong businessman who wants to buy Taiwanese news website Apple Online said the potential acquisition did not involve any funding from mainland China.
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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.
Hong Kong-based Next Digital media group was founded by jailed Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying.
“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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Apple Daily closed in June after executives and journalists were arrested and its financial assets frozen for allegedly breaching a sweeping security law imposed on the city by the central government.
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