Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Sony Rejects Loeb IPO Proposal

     In May, CEO of Third Point LLC, Daniel Loeb submitted a proposal to CEO of Sony Corporation, Kazuo Hirai, detailing a sale of 15%-20% of Sony's entertainment business in an IPO. Sony's struggling entertainment business is failing to produce revenue which can be attributed to production of recent movie flops. After leading in movie sales the previous year, Sony has dropped to sixth in movie sales. "We find it perplexing that Mr. Hirai does not worry about a division that has just released 2013’s version of "Waterworld" and "Ishtar" back-to-back,’ Loeb says in the letter, referring to movie flops "After Earth" and "White House Down".


    Yesterday, Kazuo Hirai rejected Loeb's proposal to sell a portion of the entertainment business. Kazuo Hirai and Sony Corporation stressing "100 percent ownership of the film and music units is crucial to the company’s success." Kazuo Hirai and Sony Corporation are confident in developing a unified business that spans the production of TVs and mobile devices that can combine with music and film content to drive earnings after years of losses from electronics.

  Also, Sony's recent success is not an good indication of company performance. “Currency weakness is the main driver here,” said Hideki Yasuda, a Tokyo-based analysts at Ace Research Institute. “They’ve cut unit sales forecasts for a lot of product segments, so it’s not as though the fundamentals are really improving, but the yen is lifting earnings.”


   Apparent after-effects of the rejection of the proposal can be seen in the Sony's stock, which fell 5.4% the next day, the biggest drop since May 27. This drop can possibly be linked to the investor's lack of confidence that Sony can return to its former status. However, Sony's rejection of the IPO signals that the company is confident in their future plans.

•http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-06/sony-rejects-loeb-push-to-sell-for-entertainment-ipo.html
•http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-01/sony-profit-beats-estimates-as-weaker-yen-boosts-overseas-sales.html
•http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-30/sony-earnings-face-setback-as-loeb-criticizes-movie-unit.html

•http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/global/1567157/daniel-loeb-ups-sony-stake-presses-on-for-entertainment-ipo


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