Why is Sony still in the entertainment business?

[Smooth3d]

Sony slammed the door in the face of a major shareholder last week when it rejected billionaire investor Daniel Loeb's proposal to spin off part of the company's entertainment business. Loeb, whose Third Point LLC hedge fund owns nearly 7 percent of Sony, had suggested selling between 15 to 20 percent of the music and film divisions in order to raise capital, sharpen the company's focus, and boost its long-suffering stock price. But CEO and president Kazuo Hirai, in an open letter to Loeb, says the company's board unanimously voted against the proposal and called 100 percent ownership of the divisions "fundamental to Sony's success."

FOR CEO HIRAI, THE PROPOSAL IS THE OPPOSITE OF 'ONE SONY'

Hirai and Loeb are expressing very different takes on the same fundamental fact: while Sony is best known as a maker of consumer electronics, for the past few years its music and movie divisions have been the only consistently, meaningfully profitable part of the company besides its financial services arm, which most people outside of Japan have never heard of. Its mobile and TV divisions, by contrast, have been losing money, while the game and camera businesses are barely breaking even. For an American like Loeb, this represents a perfect opportunity to unlock value by spinning out the healthy part of the business. For Hirai, the proposal is the opposite of the "One Sony" plan to unite the company he unveiled after taking the reins

Read more here: http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/12/4613744/why-did-sony-reject-entertainment-spinoff-proposal

 

[Ayo]

Did you see Loeb's apology and promise to butt out?

His entire argument was based on After Earth and White House Down doing poorly. But Skyfall, ZeroDarkThirty and Django make up for those loses multiple times over.

Loeb is clueless.

 

[Ayo]

Also the writer at The Verge has absolutely no fukking clue what he's talking about.

The article spins Loeb's concerns and the authors opinion into "some people think" speak multiple times. He also cites the flops without mentioning the massive success of Skyfall, Django, and ZeroDarkThirty to name a few.

 

[HipHopStan]

I guess this means Spiderman won't be going anywhere (aka back to Marvel) any time soon.

 

[Smooth3d]

Yes this article is suspect. That why I wanted to bring it over here. It seems we have some good movie talk sessions here sometimes verses a site dedicated to tech news.

 

[Rekkapryde]

yeah, Loeb just wants to make some fast bucks.

It's been know for years that the mobile and TV divisions were killing the company. And no way in hell does Sony sell off or spin off Columbia Pics. The mobile biz is starting to turn around as well. They REALLY need to get their TVs back on the grind though.

 

[Ayo]

yeah, Loeb just wants to make some fast bucks.

Ya a lot of it is his responsibility to make his customers/investors money. But a good amount of it is him being way too rich with way too much time on his hands and nothing better to do than play movie mogul. Sometimes you have to smack these delusional rich idiots back into reality. And that's what Clooney did.

 

[Smooth3d]

yeah, Loeb just wants to make some fast bucks.

It's been know for years that the mobile and TV divisions were killing the company. And no way in hell does Sony sell off or spin off Columbia Pics. The mobile biz is starting to turn around as well. They REALLY need to get their TVs back on the grind though.

Yes Sony needs to improve their TV game big time. I'm sure they still make good tv's but they price themselves out of the market, when other tv manufacturers make tv's just as good but cheaper. Long gone are the days when Trinitron was vastly superior to other tube tv's of the 80 and 90's.

 

[Mr. Somebody]

Sonys animation studios alone have generated close to 2 billion dollars since 2006. I think they're ok, friends.