Sony Group Corporation and Kadokawa Corporation to form strategic capital and business alliance

As a seasoned fan of both Sony and Kadokawa, this news has filled my heart with excitement! The synergy between these two giants promises to bring us an unprecedented fusion of creativity, innovation, and storytelling that will undoubtedly captivate audiences worldwide.

On January 7, 2025, Sony Group Corporation plans to purchase around 12 million new shares of Kadokawa Corporation for about 50 billion yen (around $320 million USD) as part of a strategic partnership deal. This acquisition will make Sony Group Corporation the largest shareholder of Kadokawa Corporation, owning around 10% of its shares, including those previously acquired in February 2021. The company has made this announcement.

Kadokawa Corporation serves as the umbrella organization for multiple subsidiary businesses spanning publishing, film, graphics, and cross-media ventures. In the gaming industry, its portfolio comprises ACQUIRE, FromSoftware, Gotcha Gotcha Games, and Spike Chunsoft.

Here is Sony Group Corporation’s rationale on the acquisition of shares:

Historically, Kadokawa and Sony have partnered on numerous ventures, and aim to fortify this relationship by increasing our collaboration to boost the global worth of both companies’ intellectual properties and foster broader, deeper collaborations. This could involve joint investments in content, discovering new creators together, and promoting a wider array of media mixes for both companies’ intellectual properties. In the future, they plan to explore specific collaborative projects, such as adapting Kadokawa’s intellectual properties into live-action films and TV dramas worldwide, co-producing anime works, distributing more of Kadokawa’s anime globally through Sony Group, publishing more games from Kadokawa globally, and developing human resources to advance virtual production.

Takeshi Natsuno, CEO of Kadokawa Corporation, expressed his delight about finalizing a partnership concerning capital and business with Sony in a press statement. This collaboration is anticipated to boost our ability to create intellectual property (IP), as well as expand our options for IP media mixes with Sony’s assistance in global expansion. This will enable us to bring our IP to more users globally. We believe this partnership will significantly enhance the value of our IP and our company as a whole over the mid- to long-term. Our goal is to work diligently to ensure that our joint ventures with Sony yield successful outcomes in the global market.

In simpler terms, Hiroki Totoki, Sony Group Corporation’s president, COO, and CFO, stated that through this partnership, Sony will become the largest shareholder of Kadokawa. Kadokawa is known for creating a diverse range of intellectual properties, such as books, light novels, comics, games, and anime. By uniting Kadokawa’s vast intellectual property portfolio and intellectual property creation infrastructure with Sony’s global reach in entertainment sectors like anime and gaming, they aim to collaborate closely to achieve Kadokawa’s strategy of maximizing the value of its intellectual properties (Global Media Mix) and Sony’s long-term vision (Creative Entertainment Vision).

Further information is available via the press release issued by Kadokawa Corporation.

Read More

2024-12-19 11:16