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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.
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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.
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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