Sony, M & A does not stop in the "entertainment" field!-M & A online -M & A is closer.

The Sony Group is in the M & A market.The main battlefield is the entertainment field such as games, music and anime.M & A in the past year is the main one, including six, and has two large projects that exceed 100 billion yen.

Sold the US game business for 110 billion yen

The Sony Group announced on October 19 that it will sell an online game business for Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) to US Scopey for about $ 10 billion (about 110 billion yen).Scopey is one of the rapidly growing mobile game companies.Half of the price of the sale is received by preferred stocks, and the company's growth potential, including the public's promising stocks, will be incorporated.

The sale is a Game business of the US TV production company, a gaming show network, which is a source of SPE, and specializes in casinos such as playing card games and bingo for smartphones.The card game "Solitaire" is said to be played more than 100 million times a week.

With the transition to the holding company system, Sony changed its name to the Sony Group on April 1 this year.With the aim of clarifying the role as a command tower that bundles a composite group, Sony's name has been taken over by a subsidiary of the ancestor electronics business.

2 trillion yen investment slots in the entertainment business

The company has set up an investment slot that spends more than 2 trillion yen in the acquisition of intellectual property rights (IP) in entertainment businesses and other entertainment businesses, such as games and animations, and to acquire advanced techniques over the next three years since FY2021.Of these, although the distribution amount to M & A is not clear, it is expected that funds will be abundant.

It has been a year that the accelerator to M & A has been fully open to the last year.Last December, the company announced that it would acquire US Holdings, which operates the anime distribution business "Clantrol", for about 122.2 billion yen, for about 122.2 billion yen (completed in August 2021).Clantroll distributes video content and mobile games such as animation, dramas, and manga in more than 200 countries and regions.

In February, in February, the U.S. Music Publisher Corp. Cobalt Music Group decided to acquire the AWAL business and adjacent copyright management projects for about 45.2 billion yen."AWAL" is mainly for indie (independent) artists who do not belong to major (major), and artists do not incur initial costs and pay a certain fee from distribution revenue.

The transition to a holding company in April has further spurred M & A.He announced that it would buy about 28.2 billion yen and acquire a Brazilian independent music company Son Ribre.The aim is to sell popular Brazilian artists and songs to the world.

However, just because it is an entertainment field does not mean that the acquisition is all over.He skillfully separates buyers and sellers.

As you can see in a large -scale sale of the US game business over 100 billion yen, there is no choice but to replace the business.This year, three satellite broadcasting subsidiaries, including the mystery channel (Minato -ku, Tokyo), a mystery drama specialty channel, have been sold to the home electronics retailer Nojima.

Dark clouds in merging with major Indian broadcasting companies

It was September that the merger plan for the Indian subsidiary and the local broadcasting major ZEE (Gee) was announced.Sony will contribute a growth fund of about 172 billion yen and acquire the majority of the newly merged company.Developing media content business in India, which has a population of 1.3 billion, incorporates a huge market.However, ZEE's major shareholder US investment company Invesco has expressed opposition to the merger, and there are also dark clouds.

Sony's achievement forecast for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022 is 7.8 % increase to 9.07 trillion yen, operating income 2.6 % increase to 980 billion yen.In August, sales were unchanged, but operating income is expected to be revised upwards and a change in profit increases.Against the backdrop of good performance, the M & A strategy is likely to accelerate further in anticipation of post corona.

◎ Sony Group: Main M & A in the past year (when the amount is initially announced)

Sentence: M & A online editorial department