CEO Takeshi Natsuno confirmed the news of Sony's intent to acquire the company shortly after it broke in late November. A week later, we learned that Kadokawa expressed their desire for Sony to buy them outright. At the same time, Sony is only interested in "strategic investments," such as their video game and anime properties.
News of the acquisition skyrocketed Kadokawa's stock price to an all-time high of 4500 JPY, equivalent to 29.56 USD. Sony already owns 2% of Kadokawa's shares and 14.09% of FromSoftware. Kadokawa is the majority shareholder of FromSoftware, owning 69.66% of the company. Tencent owns the remaining 16.25% of FromSoftware.
One veteran employee from Kadokawa recently spoke to Bunshun about the acquisition and expressed some excitement about Sony's acquisition. The reason? Dissatisfaction with Natsuno.
The employees around me are happy about Sony's acquisition. That's because there are a certain number of employees who are dissatisfied with the Natsuno administration, which did not even hold a press conference after personal information was leaked due to a cyber attack. I expect that if Sony acquires the company, the first thing they will do is fire President Natsuno.
If this employee sentiment sounds familiar, you're not crazy. It resembles the sentiment around Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard King. Looking to consolidate the industry is never good, but people were willing to look past it if it meant Bobby Kotick would no longer be in charge of Activision.
Takeshi Natsuno doesn't exactly have a clean history here, either. Earlier this year, 1.5 terabytes of data were stolen from Kadokawa by hackers, including the personal information of both their employees and users. Staff weren't too thrilled with Natsuno's response to the breach.
Despite some employees hoping the deal goes through, economic commentator Takahiro Suzuki is concerned. He says that Sony is looking to consolidate its entertainment portfolio as its core business, but it's not able to create new IPs like it used to. As a result, it's easier to acquire already established properties to drive revenue. Suzuki feels like Kadokawa will lose its independence, and management will only become stricter.
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Source: https://www.dualshockers.com/kadokawa-employees-sony-buyout/
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