Sony became a big shareholder of Kadokawa

Sony Group Corporation and Kadokawa Corporation have announced a strategic capital and business alliance, which will see Sony acquiring 12,054,100 new shares of Kadokawa for approximately 50 billion yen (around $318 million).

This deal, set to be finalized on January 7, 2025, will make Sony the largest shareholder in Kadokawa, holding approximately 10% of its shares.

This alliance aims to maximize the value of both companies’ intellectual properties (IPs) globally. Sony and Kadokawa have a history of collaboration, and this new partnership will further strengthen their cooperation. The two companies plan to work together on various initiatives, including:

• Adapting Kadokawa’s IPs into live-action films and TV dramas globally.
• Co-producing anime works.
• Expanding the global distribution of Kadokawa’s anime works through Sony’s extensive network.
• Further expanding the publishing of Kadokawa’s games.
• Developing human resources to promote and expand virtual production.

Takeshi Natsuno, CEO of Kadokawa, expressed his enthusiasm for the alliance, stating that it will strengthen Kadokawa’s IP creation capabilities and increase their IP media mix options with Sony’s support for global expansion. He believes this will greatly contribute to maximizing the value of their IP and increasing their corporate value in the mid- to long-term.

Hiroki Totoki, President, COO, and CFO of Sony Group Corporation, also commented on the alliance, highlighting that it will allow Sony to become the largest shareholder of Kadokawa, which consistently creates a wide variety of IPs, including publications, books, games, and anime. He emphasized that by combining Kadokawa’s extensive IP and IP creation ecosystem with Sony’s strengths, they aim to realize Kadokawa’s ‘Global Media Mix’ strategy and Sony’s ‘Creative Entertainment Vision’.

It was heavily suggested that Kadokawa was not interested on selling portions of its assets and wanted a full buyout from Sony if a deal in that height would have been in the table, because apparently Sony was just interested on all anime entertainment portion and FromSoftware, but evidently, this wasn’t the case.