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

gematsu.com:

Sony Group Corporation has signed a strategic capital and business alliance agreement with Kadokawa Corporation to conduct a third-party allotment on January 7, 2025 to acquire 12,054,100 new shares of Kadokawa Corporation for approximately 50 billion yen (approx. $320 million USD), the company announced. With this acquisition of shares, Sony Group Corporation will become Kadokawa Corporation’s largest shareholder, holding approximately 10 percent of it shares, including the shares it previously acquired in February 2021. Sony Group Corporation currently does not plan to acquire additional Kadokawa Corporation shares after the execution of the acquisition.

Kadokawa Corporation is the parent company of numerous subsidiaries across publishing, film and visuals, and cross media. In the gaming space, this includes ACQUIRE, FromSoftware, Gotcha Gotcha Games, and Spike Chunsoft.

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

“We are very pleased to conclude this capital and business alliance agreement with Sony,” said Kadokawa Corporation chief executive officer Takeshi Natsuno in a press release. “This alliance is expected to not only further strengthen our [intellectual property] creation capabilities, but also increase our [intellectual property] media mix options with Sony’s support for global expansion, allowing us to deliver our [intellectual property] to more users around the world. We are confident that this will greatly contribute to maximizing the value of our [intellectual property] and increasing our corporate value in the mid- to long-term. We intend to do our utmost to ensure that our collaborative efforts with Sony produce great results in the global market.”

Sony Group Corporation president, chief operating officer, and chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki added, “Through this capital and business alliance, we will become the largest shareholder of Kadokawa, which consistently creates a wide variety of [intellectual property],