The fate of Asia Television remains up in the air following the latest twist in the life of the troubled oldest broadcaster in Hong Kong. Parker Zheng / China Daily

Cash-strapped Asia Television (ATV) has received two offers to provide up to HK$800 million in two days after a fourth mainland firm announced a bid to help save the city's oldest television station just weeks away from its final free-to-air broadcast.

The decision was approved by 99.99 percent of shareholders after an extraordinary general meeting held by fabric printing and dyeing giant Co-Prosperity Holdings. The company will offer a HK$300 million loan to ATV majority shareholder China Cultural Media Group (CCM) to help keep the hard-up station afloat.

Co-Prosperity CEO Ip Ka-po stepped down as executive director of the station after being indicted amid ATV's unpaid payroll turmoil in 2014.

The company earlier entered a memorandum of understanding with CCM to remake ATV's dramas.

In December, it announced it would issue an additional 900 million shares. Of the capital raised, it offered HK$300 million to CCM as a three-year loan with an annual interest rate of 12 percent.

Co-Prosperity's bid comes a day after a third firm waded into ATV's drawn-out demise with yet another takeover bid.

Mainland-based e-commerce company China Trends Holdings forwarded a HK$500 million bid which will have to be approved by the cash-strapped station's provisional liquidator Deloitte.

The proposal will cover outstanding payrolls and Deloitte's yet-to-be-determined fees in exchange for a controlling stake in the station.

ATV's license will lapse on April 1, but China Trends Holdings plans to secure ATV's Pearl River Delta landing rights to launch Web-based TV services.

Despite the seemingly promising outlook, the Labour Department suggested station employees who still had not received their salaries should apply for liquidation themselves, owing to uncertainties.

The suggestion was made during a meeting between the department and ATV's employees. A total of 350 employees, half of the total staff in its peak time, have applied to the Protection of Wages on Insolvency Fund up to now.

The convener of a concern group made up of 100 former and current ATV staffers, Tsang Hin-kwok, said his colleagues were not getting their hopes up after repeated courting by new investors over the years which have failed to translate into stable salaries.

ATV's cash flow problems began in 2014 - with the station narrowly avoiding a complete shutdown last Friday after Deloitte announced mass layoffs.

ATV majority shareholder CCM has kept less than 30 percent of the station's staff on to serve as a skeleton crew as the broadcaster inches toward its final free-to-air license broadcast.

stushadow@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 03/10/2016 page8)