Travel agency HIS and other shareholders announced Tuesday that they have reached a deal to sell the Huis Ten Bosch (HSB) theme park in Nagasaki prefecture to PAG, an investment firm out of Hong Kong.
HIS currently holds around 66% of HSB while smaller shareholders including Kyushu Denryoku, Seibu Gas Holdings, Kyudenko Corporation, JR Kyushu and Nishi-Nippon Railroad will also sell their shares. The deal is reported to be worth around JPY100 billion (US$720 million).
They will be purchased by PAG, an investment firm based in Hong Kong, which plans to continue the operation of HSB. The theme park is located alongside the planned site for a Nagasaki IR, with the prefecture and its selected partner Casinos Austria currently awaiting a decision by the central government on whether or not it will be granted a concession to develop its IR.
HSB covers an area of 152 hectares, making it the largest stand-alone theme park in Japan.
The name “Huis ten Bosch” is Dutch for “House at the Woods” and the venue is meant to be a replica of the Huis ten Bosch royal palace in The Hague, Netherlands, a former residence of Queen Beatrix.
The company filed for application of the Corporate Reorganization Law in 2003 due to unprofitable operations with a plan to rebuild the company with the support of an investment firm. Instead it became a subsidiary of HIS which restored operations in 2010. However, HIS’s overseas travel business has suffered due to the COVID pandemic.
Meanwhile, Nagasaki’s IR bid includes a plan to open around autumn of 2027 and estimates annual sales to reach JPY271.6 billion (US$1.96 billion) by its fifth year of operations, with 6.73 million annual visitors and an economic ripple effect of JPY322.8 billion (US$2.33 billion).
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