SEGA-Sammy Holdings has released a statement today, announcing their plans to sell 85.1% of its shares in their subsidiary Sega Live Creation to Hong Kong-based China Theme Park Limited, itself a subsidiary of China Animation Group. As a result of the transfer, Sega Live Creation will no longer be part of Sega-Sammy Holding’s subsidiaries. The transfer price is ¥600 million (around $5.7 million or €5.2 million).
Sega Live Creation was mostly know for its indoor type theme parks “Joypolis” and “Orbi.”. Joypolis is an amusement park chain that was first established on July 20, 1994. In recent times, the number of amusement parks of the chain had been reduced to only two in Japan, and two in China. One of the amusement parks in China (Shangai) was already operated by China Theme Park, under license from SEGA. This move means that China Theme Park will now take over all four of the Joypolis amusement parks. However, Sega-Sammy does note that the “Orbi” business will not be part of the deal, and will instead be transferred into the SEGA group.
Because of the transfer, Sega-Sammy expects to record an approximately 1.4 billion yen of loss on sales of shares of subsidiaries and associates in its operating results for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2017. The company is currently examining the impact this will have on its initial forecast, and will announce the new forecast as soon as possible.