The new owner of struggling Hong Kong franchised bus firms Citybus and New World First Bus has sold its 27-year stake in contactless payment company Octopus Holdings.

Without revealing the proceeds of the sale, Bravo Transport Services said it sold 2.78 million shares in Octopus to the smart card company’s controlling shareholder, railway giant MTR Corporation. Its remaining 600,000 shares in Octopus will be sold to another company.

The company said on Monday that the fifth wave of coronavirus cases in the city had put the business under intense pressure and exacerbated its financial woes.

“It is indeed a sad but necessary given the current circumstances,” it said in a written statement. “We will urgently call for the safe reopening of borders to allow mainland China cross-border travel, and international travellers to return to our city as the epidemic situation improves.”

Bravo Transport Services said it has sold its 2.78 million shares in Octopus.

It said it had lost HK$25 million (US$3.2 million) a month before the recent outbreak, and accumulated HK$379 million in losses since the onset of the pandemic two years ago.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said on January 14 that public transport patronage had tumbled 30 per cent since social-distancing curbs were put in place on January 7 against the highly infectious Omicron variant.

Other Octopus shareholders include franchised bus firm the Kowloon Motor Bus Company, railway firm Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation and Sun Ferry.