Hong-Kong based activist investment fund Oasis Management Company recently announced that it has significantly increased its stake in Japanese publishing giant Kadokawa, also known as the parent company of Elden Ring developer FromSoftware. According to a report submitted to the Ministry of Finance on June 23, Oasis has bought an additional 2,215,200 shares in the company, increasing its stake from 13.76% to 15.25%. As reported by Game Biz, the hedge fund has been intermittently purchasing Kadokawa’s shares since May 18, one million of which were acquired in an off-market transaction on June 16.
Oasis Management Company is known as an activist investor, meaning that it seeks to buy significant stakes in companies in order to influence how they are managed, usually with the purpose of increasing shareholder returns (not to be confused with political activism). Its major goals within Kadokawa include improving the company’s corporate value in the mid to long-term, enhancing the effectiveness of the board of directors, and improving corporate governance. Additionally, it aims to maximize revenue from Kadokawa’s major IPs through strategies like AI use, effective utilization of assets, review of the shareholder structure, and revisions of the company’s M&A strategy and capital policy.
The fund has been steadily acquiring shares in Kadokawa since March this year, going from an 8.86% stake to an 11.85% stake over the course of a few weeks, and becoming the company’s largest shareholder with 13.76% ownership by the end of the month. However, it doesn’t seem like Oasis is planning to stop. While it currently owns a 15.25% stake, the hedge fund is considering increasing its ownership by more than 5% in the following period, and may proceed with additional purchases both on and off the market, if given the necessary approvals.
The recent report also revealed that Oasis intends to make proposals to Kadokawa regarding appointments and dismissals of representative directors and changes in the composition of the board of directors, as well as how the publisher handles business transfers, dividend policies and other important matters related to its capital policy.
Oasis has already made significant moves in this field after becoming the company’s largest shareholder in March 2025. Notably, in May, it published a 130-pages-long document pushing for the removal of Kadokawa’s current CEO from his position and criticizing the company’s management policies – including “profit leakage” due to FromSoftware’s reliance on third parties for publishing. Meanwhile, Kadokawa has dismissed Oasis’ attempts to oust its CEO for now and has criticized much of its talking points as lacking fundamental understanding of the company’s circumstances.
With all these investors trying to get their say in, I guess I can just stop paying attention to FromSoft.
They may need to try and separate themselves from Kadokawa, but not sure if that will happen. These companies are learning the pitfalls of selling out to investors instead of trusting customer base. One can stop buying, the other can destroy you a variety of ways.
I hope this fails, Kadokawa isn’t just the owner of FromSoftware, they’re really important as a publisher in the cultural space. I don’t trust activist investors to understand that long term Kadokawa’s image is very important to keep most of their activities running well.
The day you see Kadokawa’s logo and think “oh this is going to be cost-cutting sh!t”, it’ll be unrecoverable.
I don’t think it matters much what kind of activist it is, Oasis is based in Hong Kong, now in the hands of Beijing, CCP influence. They will control Japanese companies one way or another, extract, put in position it will decline over time and be dumped just as we’ve seen Tencent and Netease do. A great way to strike at Japan’s sectors indirectly during a time when it allies itself again China with Taiwan.
Remember when everyone and every single media spread fearmongering news and endlessly doomposted about “the end of anime and games” when Sony bought majority of shares in Kadokawa years ago??? while actually it was Kadokawa themselves who proposed Sony to do so??? Now where are they all????? This is actually 1000000x worse yet barely any media report this thing. I’m not defending Sony as they have their own problems. But, a moment when everyone assumed Sony as a “foreign threat” to Japanese gaming industry while they go chill with this REAL foreign threat is really really unfair to me
Yeah, this is my first time learning about this… seems like some actual legit news about the video game industry and what journalists of the culture should be concerned with, aye?
Looks like From needs to hop off to another company if they’re trying to use money to pry the company open
Isn’t it illegal in Japan for a non Japanese company to have a controlling stake in a Japanese company?
Not at all? It’s a publicly traded company,the Japanese govt is just like everyone else they just need their palms greased enough
There would be a recommendation from Japanese government to reject a deal in the name of national security, in case there is a potential of hostile takeover or confidential info leakage. I’m not sure whether it’d work for this case tho. But, as long as the CEO is smart enough to not bow so easily, then it’s still safe
Oasis will be the end of Kadokawa and the industry. Activists investors have killed Hollywood and western entertainment and we have more than enough proof of this. In fact even western media outlets that promoted global standards are starting to realize this. If people wanted sanitized slop they would watch or play western entertainment. They will get control tank the company and entertainment meduim than sell. In fact Tencent is doing this right now with several Japanese studios Marvelous is just one example.
These ghouls will be the death of yet another beloved company.
You hate to see it. Prepare for the fall of Fromsoft if these nonhumans get their way. Employees will be laid off and their fantastic art and sound teams will be replaced by AI cost cutting slop. Hopefully Fromsoft realizes this and either buys themselves out or the core taken leave and start something new (and privately owned)