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Universal Saudi Arabia

During a live broadcast, Abdullah Al-Dawood (CEO of Qiddiya Investment Company was asked about whether a Universal theme park is part of Qiddiya's projects.

Al-Dawood’s response:-

"Why are you asking me this question? You're putting me in an awkward position!
No comment, no comment on this topic right now.
We'll see what the future holds. God willing, good things are coming."

Source

From: https://x.com/m7md_a98/status/2008256555301695926
 
havaska said:
Well the Dubai Universal park has been an amazing success. Hmmm.
Click to expand...
Geek time on my part, but they are seperate strategies that are completely unrelated due to the chosen Entry Modes.

The Dubailand project was a Joint Venture where Universal would have shared both control and risk with local investors. When the Dubai bubble burst after the financial crisis, risk increased.

As stated, this proposal is a Licensing deal, so the financial risk is reduced, likely significantly. Judging by the full risk strategy they have adopted in entering the UK via a Wholly Owned Subsidiary, it's likely that Comcast Corp. are aggressively internationalising their theme park operations, and sure that comes with increased risk.

But considering they've since coughed up to purchase the remaining stake in Universal Studios Japan, are spending £billions with great confidence entering the UK, whilst also cancelling Moscow and Dubai, the latter of which they could easily get off the ground if they wanted to: indicates they know what they are doing with this.

The risk-averse licensing agreement for Tokyo Disneyland is something that Disney still reel over to this day. In fact, it drove the disastrous DLP Joint Venture. Universal have always retained far more control over their products than Disney ever have with Tokyo, and quickly learnt how to balance risk and control from the Poetadventura experiment and the DLP disaster.

The Saudi's seem to be splashing the cash in importing Americana right now. Yet Universal have not insisted on a Joint Venture entry despite throwing money around all the over the place themselves at the moment. This indicates to me that they see some risk in this, but have managed to palm that off on the Saudi's whilst agreeing on retaining a high enough degree of control over protecting their IP's.

It was likely an offer they couldn't possibly refuse with control protections that allow Universal to obtain controlling equity should the brown stuff hit the fan.
 
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