- Sony has acquired new shares from FromSoftware owner Kadokawa, making him the company’s largest shareholder.
- Sony now owns 10% of the shares, including shares previously acquired in February 2021
- The two companies also plan to discuss new initiatives, such as ways to adapt Kadokawa’s intellectual property into films, television shows, co-produce anime and expand its games.
Sony has announced that it is now the majority shareholder of FromSoftware owner Kadokawa.
Today, December 19, a new press release was shared to confirm that Sony and Kadokawa have officially signed a “strategic capital and business alliance agreement” after Sony acquired 12,054,100 new Kadokawa shares for approximately 50 billion of yen, around $318.6 million / £252 million.
With the new shares, Sony is currently Kadokawa’s largest shareholder and now owns approximately 10% of its shares, including shares that Sony acquired in February 2021.
Through this new business and capital alliance, the PlayStation owner said that he and Kadokawa “intend to further strengthen our collaboration to maximize the value of both companies’ intellectual property globally,” as well as “facilitate broader and deeper collaboration, such as possible joint investments in content. field, jointly discovering new creators and jointly promoting more media mixes from both companies’ intellectual property.”
The two companies also plan to discuss new collaborative initiatives, including ways to adapt Kadokawa’s intellectual property into live-action films and television dramas globally, co-produce anime works, expand Kadokawa’s anime works through Sony, and expand even more the company’s games.
“We are very pleased to conclude this business and equity alliance agreement with Sony,” said Takeshi Natsuno, CEO of Kadokawa. “This alliance is expected to not only further strengthen our IP creation capabilities but also increase our IP media mix options with Sony’s support for global expansion, allowing us to offer our IP to more users in everyone.
“We are confident that this will go a long way to maximizing the value of our intellectual property and increasing our corporate value in the medium and long term. We intend to do everything possible to ensure that our collaborative efforts with Sony produce excellent results in the global market.”
Reports that Sony was looking to acquire the Japanese publisher and owner of the Elden Ring The developer emerged last month, but it wasn’t until last week that Sony confirmed it had “made an initial statement of intent.”
Sony President, COO and CFO Hiroki Totoki also commented on the new share acquisition, saying: “Through this business and capital alliance, we will become the largest shareholder of Kadokawa, which steadily creates a wide variety of intellectual property, including publications and books such as light novels and comics, as well as games and anime.
“By combining Kadokawa’s extensive IP and IP creation ecosystem with the strengths of Sony, which has promoted the global expansion of a wide range of entertainment, including anime and games, we plan to work closely to realize the ‘Global’ strategy. Media Mix’ by Kadokawa. aimed at maximizing the value of its intellectual property and Sony’s long-term ‘Creative Entertainment Vision’.”
