Sony sells off Square Enix shares

Maybe you'd forgotten Sony held a minority stake in the Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider publisher.
Text: Bengt Lemne
Published 2014-04-16

Sony has announced that they intend to sell of all of their shares in Square Enix within the next few days. It is SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. who are buying at 4.8 billion yen (approximately $47 million) - well below the market price on Sony's stake in Square Enix. Sony first picked up a stake in Square Enix back in 2001 and clearly, their stake hasn't had much influence on the publisher's releases (remember Square Enix pulled Dragon Quest from PlayStation platforms to Nintendo and Final Fantasy went multiplatform during this period).

Both Sony and Square Enix are going through some hard times. And the move on Sony's part is likely an attempt at off-setting continued poor results for the corporation as a whole. Square Enix in the meantime are re-organising in order to turn the ship around.

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