Following the rumors circulated in recent weeks, Sony announced that it had acquired a total of 10% of Kadokawa’s shares, thus becoming the relative majority shareholder of the Japanese group which owns, among others, FromSoftware, Spike Chunsoft, Acquire and Gotcha Gotcha Games.
Sony then reached an agreement with Kadokawa regarding a strategic alliance between the two companies. “Through this new 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 manga, as well as video games and anime,” said Hiroki Totoki, president, chief operating officer and financial institution of Sony Group Corporation. “By combining KADOKAWA’s broad IP portfolio and creative ecosystem with the strengths of Sony, which has driven the global expansion of a wide range of entertainment products, including anime and video games, we intend to work closely contact to realize Kadokawa’s ‘Global Media Mix’ strategy, aimed at maximizing the value of its IPs and Sony’s long-term vision, ‘Creative Entertainment Vision’.”
The acquisition of the shares cost around 50 billion yen (i.e. just over 305 million euros at current exchange rates). Sony specifies that at the moment it does not intend to acquire further shares of Kadokawa.
