Sony and FromSoftware parent company Kadokawa’s deal has officially been signed. However, instead of the complete buyout that was speculated, the former has increased its stake in the Japanese company, officially becoming the largest shareholder. The news comes directly from a press release by Sony, which said that the two will collaborate to form a strategic capital and business alliance.
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If this deal between Sony and Kadokawa goes through it could mean very big things.
“Kadokawa Corporation and Sony Group Corporation today signed a strategic capital and business alliance agreement, agreeing to conduct a third-party allotment by Kadokawa to Sony on January 7, 2025, with Sony acquiring 12,054,100 new Kadokawa shares for approximately 50 billion yen,” said the announcement. “With the acquisition of the new shares, Sony will become Kadokawa’s largest shareholder, holding approximately 10% of its shares, including the shares Sony previously acquired in February 2021.”
Sony Now Owns 10 Percent Of Kadokawa
The deal between the two companies has been in the works for weeks, leading to speculations that Sony wanted to completely buy out Kadokawa’s wealth of IPs which stretch from videogames to anime. However, it seems Sony is happy enough to increase its overall stake to 10 percent.
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“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 deliver our IP to more users around the world,” said a statement by Kadokawa CEO Takeshi Natsuno. “We are confident that this will greatly contribute to maximizing the value of our IP and increasing our corporate value in the mid- to long-term.”
Based on this statement, it seems part of the collaboration would be for Kadokawa to leverage Sony’s global presence to take its IPs global, while Sony would benefit from the Japanese corporation’s highly popular IP.
Sony Group Corporation Hiroki Totoki’s statement seems to echo this idea, saying, “”Through this capital and business alliance, we will become the largest shareholder of Kadokawa, which consistently creates a wide variety of IP, including publications and books, such as light novels and comics, as well as games and anime”.
Fans of FromSoftware were worried about how Sony’s involvement might ruin future games by the Elden Ring developer, but perhaps this deal might put their worries a bit at ease.
With worldbuilding from Game of Thrones scribe George R.R. Martin and developed by FromSoftware, Elden Ring is a masterpiece in what has become known as the ‘Soulslike’ genre of action role-playing games.