WASHINGTON -- Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan announced Wednesday he had succeeded in forcing Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. to sell its tourist facilities in Yosemite National Park to a non-profit group.
The $49.5 million sale will be completed in 1993, at which time the non-profit group, the National Park Foundation, will donate its property to the National Park Service. The service will then negotiate contract terms with a new concession operator.
The deal will 'ensure successful future management and operations of one of this country's magnificent wonders,' Lujan told the House Interior Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands.'
But the arrangement also requires domestic ownership of the concession business at Yosemite, the principal reason Lujan raised objections to Matsushita's $6.6 billlion acquisition of MCA Inc. last week. The company's subsidiaries include Universal Studios and MCA Records.
Lujan repeatedly said during the hearing and later at a news conference that he wished to 'tone down the rhetoric,' though he denied that he had engaged in 'Japan bashing.'
'Certainly not,' he said when asked whether he led a crusade against Japan. 'There was not any Japan bashing.'
The complex deal means that MCA will sell the Yosemite Park & Curry Co., which runs hotels, restaurants, groceries and a gas station inside the central Sierra Nevada park. Included are the Ahwahnee Hotel, Yosemite Lodge and the historic tent cabins.
Robert Hadl, vice president and general counsel of MCA Inc., said Wednesday, 'The agreement which was reached (Tuesday) ensures that the concession at Yosemite Park will continue to be run and managed by Americans.'
The maker of Panasonic, Technics and other brand-name electronics had been under heavy pressure from the Interior Department to let go of MCA's Yosemite concessions since the takeover.
Before the deal was completed, Lujan asked MCA to donate the concessions company to the U.S. Park Service or sell it for less than its estimated value to the National Park Foundation, created by Congress to receive private gifts to the National Park System.
MCA agreed that profits from one of American's most scenic treasures should not go overseas, but refused to donate Yosemite and Curry, offering instead to sell it to an American company within a year, putting the pre-sale profits into an escrow account.
Talks on that possible deal broke down shortly before the takeover was completed.
Under the deal completed Wednesday, MCA will retain the profits -- estimated at up to $15 million a year -- until the transfer in 1993.
Yosemite, with its massive granite formations and spectacular waterfalls and meadows, has become one of the most visited of the national parks.
