Sim Leisure Group, Malaysian-owned theme park and leisure company, has released a statement explaining its KidZania Singapore deal.
In a press release, Sim Leisure Group said it hoped to “clarify the facts and its position relating to its recent media announcement on KidZania Singapore to address the allegations and erroneous comments over social media”.
The company said KidZania Singapore was a failed asset that closed and went into receivership under a Singapore liquidator.
Towards the end of 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Sim Leisure Group took up a bid from the liquidator for KidZania Singapore. It has been negotiating the lease for the facility for the last two years with Sentosa Development Corporation.
The group said it took various risks in submitting the original bid, including being unable to see the facility due to a lockdown. The condition of the KidZania venue and the cost of renovating it was unknown at the time.
Sim Leisure Group also needed to secure the lease from the building owner, Sentosa Development Corporation, and the licensing agreement from KidZania Mexico.
KidZania Singapore a non-movable asset
The company explained that the venue is a non-movable asset and therefore cannot be relocated and has only one use.
Additionally, Sim Leisure confirmed that Khazanah Nasional Berhad, Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, did not participate in the acquisition of KidZania Singapore, as some reports have suggested.
Sim Leisure’s founder and chairman Sim Choo Kheng said the group has been “criticised for the purchase price”, adding that “the general public do not understand that a failed theme park can end up as scrap metal most of the time”.
Unlike failed assets such as hotels and resorts, which can be “repurposed into residential apartments or other commercial use”, failed theme park projects “have very limited use”, said Sim.
“There are many challenges facing the theme park industry in emerging markets,” he added. “Theme parks are a high risk, because it is a highly specialized business, which explains why so many projects fail.” Â
The team at Sim Leisure Group, he said, “live, eat and breathe theme parks, it’s all we do”.
