Kadokawa’s employees are reportedly optimistic about a Sony buyout because they’re itching for a change in leadership
Major Japanese publisher and FromSoftware owner Kadokawa confirmed Sony Group’s buyout intent on November 20, setting both the entertainment industry and stock market abuzz. Although no decisions have been announced so far, opinions on the potential buyout have been divided.
Talking to Bunshun, economic analyst Takahiro Suzuki offered the opinion that while Sony’s entertainment sector would greatly benefit from gaining access to Kadokawa’s IPs, the latter would have little to gain from the deal.
“Kadokawa will lose its independence, and management will become stricter. If they want to keep developing their business as freely as they have until now, [the acquisition] would be a bad choice. They’d have to be prepared for publications that don’t lead to IP creation being put under scrutiny.”
Similar worries about Kadokawa’s independence as a publisher have been echoed by the general public too, but what do Kadokawa’s employees think about the possible acquisition? We previously reported that the prospect of Sony and Kadokawa’s anime production frameworks merging into a global anime powerhouse caused significant excitement within Kadokawa, but new statements reported by Bunshun offer yet another perspective.
“The people around me are thrilled at the prospect of an acquisition by Sony. That’s because there’s a certain number of employees who are dissatisfied with the Natsuno administration, which didn’t even bother to hold a press conference after peoples’ personal information was leaked in the cyberattack. They expect that if Sony were to acquire the company, they would get rid of the president first,” a veteran employee of Kadokawa comments.
The Natsuno administration mentioned here refers to the leadership of Kadokawa’s current President and CEO Takeshi Natsuno, who was appointed in June 2021. Earlier this year, a group of hackers called BlackSuit launched a ransomware cyberattack on Kadokawa’s services, including NicoNico, one of Japan’s most accessed video streaming platforms. The hackers claimed to have stolen 1.5 terabytes of data, which Kadokawa confirmed included personal information of their users and employees.
It seems that Natsuno’s sluggish response during this crisis has caused significant dissatisfaction among Kadokawa’s employees, to the point of his potential dismissal fueling positive sentiment towards Sony’s acquisition.
Meanwhile, former chairman Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, who belongs to Kadokawa’s founding family, was “surprised, but appeared positive” about the acquisition, according to an insider interviewed by Bunshun. Kadokawa recently resigned from his position after being indicted in an Olympic bribery case, which no doubt also shook up the company’s administration.
The outcome of Sony and Kadokawa’s M&A negotiations remains to be seen, although some experts say that Sony could potentially back out if the deal proved too expensive.
