As part of the Sony’s ongoing effort to streamline its portfolio and operations, the company is planning to sell all of its shares in Square Enix Holdings, the company announced this morning.
Sony is looking to sell its 9.52 million common shares in Square Enix to global financial company SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. Through Sony’s own video game division Sony Computer Entertainment, the company holds the equity of 8.2 percent of Square’s issued shares — making Sony one of the global publisher and developer’s largest shareholders.
Based on current prevailing market value, Sony’s full stake is worth 16 billion yen, while Sony said it is expecting to gain 4.8 billion yen profit from the sale. This one-off profit will be included as “other income” in Sony’s financial results for the first fiscal quarter of the current business year ending March 31, 2015. Sony will disclose the final profit for the sale tomorrow, April 17.
Sony plans to share its financial report for the previous fiscal year — which ended March 31 — on May 14, along with its fiscal outlook for the upcoming year.
Early last year, Sony sold its Sony City Osaki building in Tokyo for $1.2 billion.
