TNAG-1078-FCO40-1328-Policy-of-the-Hong-Kong-Government-on-television-services-1981 — Page 68

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SCOTT

(cont'd)

again that one of our two TV stations be

subject to majority control outside Hong Kong.

One can hardly ask you for a firm commitment

at this stage on this point, but what are your views about the possibility of reducing your holdings below the majority at some stage in

time, and what sort of other conditions would

you see as necessary at that stage?

VERNON

Very hypothetical question indeed. I think

all I can say is that again as a general policy,

we would prefer to have a majority interest in any company in which we are associated for obvious

reasons. A majority interest does give us control,

and this is why we are very careful in selecting

our partners. In this case we know that our

partners have the same sort of philosophy about business as we do. If we were in an operation where we had a minority interest, we would not

have the same understanding and we would not be

as confident as if we did have the majority interest. In fact it is essential that the partners involved should operate the business in the same way as

we would like to operate ourselves. So as i

principle, we would certainly like to maintain

more than 50%.

LOVASS

It would be very difficult to commit to the onerous

conditions associated with the licence and the

financing required to support it if one did not

have some sort of effective control over it.

Although the two have to go together.