Sony becomes Kadokawa’s biggest shareholder with roughly 10% of shares

Kadokawa and Sony (SONY) signed a strategic capital and business alliance agreement, agreeing to conduct a third-party allotment by Kadokawa to Sony on January 7, 2025, with Sony acquiring 12,054,100 new Kadokawa shares for approximately 50B yen. With the acquisition of the new shares, Sony will become Kadokawa’s largest shareholder, holding approximately 10% of its shares, including the shares Sony previously acquired in February 2021. Kadokawa and Sony historically have collaborated on various projects, and through this capital and business alliance, intend to further strengthen our collaboration to maximize both companies’ IP value globally and facilitate wider and deeper collaboration, such as potential joint investments in the content field, joint discovery of new creators, and joint promotion of further media mixes of both companies’ IP. In the future, the two companies plan to discuss specific initiatives for collaboration, such as initiatives to adapt Kadokawa’s IP into live-action films and TV dramas globally, co-produce anime works, expand global distribution of Kadokawa’s anime works through the Sony Group, further expand publishing of Kadokawa’s games, and develop human resources to promote and expand virtual production. The Fly notes that Kadokawa is also a majority shareholder of game developer FromSoftware, which developed Bandai Namco-published (NCBDY) game “Elden Ring.”