Sony Corp.

Sony Corp. posted group-wide net income of $722 million, up 282% from the same quarter last year, as the company’s turnaround continued to bear fruit. Sony Pictures posted a loss of $86 million for the April to June quarter, compared to a $103 million loss in the same period last year. Sales were up 12.3%, helped by higher television production sales, offset by lower theatrical revenue along with advertising costs for Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Sony Corp. is listening to bank pitches about a potential sale of its film and TV operations, according to several sources. “Every bank is pushing pitches,” said one person familiar with the process. Another confirmed that banks have paid a flurry of visits to Tokyo to advise on a sale of Sony’s film and TV business.

Sony Corp plans to raise some $3.6 billion via new shares and bonds to invest in new technologies such as image sensors and new growth business sectors. The unexpected move saw the company’s share price plunge by as much as 8% on investor fears the new stock will dilute per-share earnings.

The poor result released Friday — a $1.2 billion loss — was despite a 7% increase in quarterly sales to $17.3 billion as performance improved in cameras, TVs and game businesses.

Citing intense competition, especially from Chinese rivals, Sony said Wednesday it anticipates a net loss of $2.15 billion for the fiscal year that ends March 31, 2015. Its previous forecast was for a $466 million net loss. For the first time since going public in 1958, the Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate canceled dividend payments for the half- and full-year.

Sony’s April-June profit soared to 26.8 billion yen ($261 million) from 3.1 billion yen a year earlier. Analysts had forecast a loss. Quarterly sales climbed nearly 6% to 1.81 trillion yen ($17.6 billion). The Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate, which has been trying to reshape its business after years of losses, did well in its video games, movie and camera businesses, offsetting restructuring costs. Under an overhaul announced earlier this year, Sony has sold its Vaio computer business and is splitting off its TV division to run as a wholly-owned subsidiary.

TOKYO (AP) — Sony shareholders voted Thursday to keep Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai and other top executives after heckling them about the Japanese electronics and entertainment company’s continuing losses. Hirai, […]

Last week, Sony reported a $1.3 billion loss for the fiscal year ended March. It is forecasting a $490 million loss for the current fiscal year. Sony has repeatedly disappointed investors by not achieving its profit forecasts. “We must acknowledge that out steps to take action had come much too slowly,” Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai told reporters today. “We are going to fully complete our structural reforms.”

The Tokyo-based maker of the PlayStation 4 game machine, Bravia TVs and Walkman digital players also forecast a $490 million loss for the year ending March 2015 as overall sales are expected to be flat without its Vaio PC business, which it sold last year. One bright spot was its television programming business, which benefited from licensing agreements for game shows, including Wheel of Fortune.

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Sony Corp. says it is closing about two-thirds of its U.S. Sony Stores is part of a wide-ranging company restructuring it announced earlier this month. It […]

Sony Corp. CEO Kazuo Hirai is walking a high-tech high wire. Under pressure from activist investor Dan Loeb to turn the electronics and entertainment giant around, Hirai unveiled a bevy a new products at last week’s Consumer Electronic Show — each one, he hoped, proof that the company’s US entertainment assets needn’t be split from its Japan manufacturing operations. So far, Loeb, who attended CES, seems happy with Hirai’s progress.

A reported deal will see Sony Corp. license the collective cable channels of Viacom for a new broadband-delivered TV service expected to launch by the end of the year. If this deal is real, the entrenched triumvirate of cable, satellite and telco distributors have essentially received a declaration of war from what may be just the first of a new breed of challengers that could include Intel, Google and Apple.

However, the bump in profitability may not be enough to please hedge fund investor Daniel Loeb, who is agitating for a spin-off of the entertaiment businesses.

Activist investor Daniel Loeb, the chief executive of hedge fund Third Point, has turned up the heat on Sony Corp. in his call for the electronics and media giant to make an initial public stock offering of up to 20% of its entertainment arm.

CEO Kaz Hirai told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting that entertainment is a vital part of the company, the that the board will consider a proposal from hedge fund Third Point to sell 15% to 20% of Sony’s profit-making division.

Sony Corp. Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai on Thursday defended the company’s ownership of an electronics-gear business and entertainment operations under one roof — a corporate mix that has come under assault from hedge-fund investor Daniel Loeb.

CEO Kazuo Hirai told a press briefing today that Sony would assess a proposal from its biggest shareholder, billionaire Daniel Loeb’s Third Point LLC hedge fund, that the group should sell up to a fifth of its music and movies business, which includes artists such as Adele and hit franchises like Spider-Man. Loeb argues a partial spin-off of Sony Entertainment would free up cash to help the struggling electronics division and could boost Sony’s stock price by 60%.

Third Point, a $13 billion hedge fund founded by billionaire investor Daniel Loeb with a reputation as an activist investor, has proposed that Sony Corp. spin off its entertainment division via an IPO, saying the move could boost the Japanese electronics firm’s shares by as much as 60%. Third Point said it would put up $1.5-$2 billion to support a public offering for Sony Entertainment.

The Japanese electronics and entertainment company also dragged itself back to profit for the fiscal year ended March 31, following four straight years of red ink. It reported today annual earnings of 43 billion yen ($434 million), a reversal from a loss of 457 billion yen ($5.7 billion) the previous year — the worst in the company’s nearly seven-decade history.

Sony Corp. Board Chairman Sir Howard Stringer, who became the first non-Japanese executive to lead the company, said he will retire in June. Stringer, 71, will step down at the company’s annual shareholder meeting, he said yesterday in a speech at the Japan Society in New York. Kazuo Hirai, 52, succeeded him as CEO almost a year ago.

In a federal court filing, high-tech camera manufacturer Red Digital claims that three cameras made by Sony Electronics and Sony Corp. of America “all embody the subject matter claimed in Red’s asserted patents without any license.”

Kazuo Hirai told reporters that Sony is now more nimble and focused under his leadership which began nine months ago. He proudly points to Sony’s new waterproof, full-HD cellphone, set to go on sale around the world in the next few months. That product, as well as the 4K or “ultra-HD” TV, whose displays have four times the pixels of today’s TVs, received mostly positive feedback at the recent International CES gadget show in Las Vegas.

Japan’s troubled TV makers, Panasonic Corp., Sony Corp. and Sharp Corp., are  selling buildings and businesses in a giant “garage sale” that could raise a combined $3 billion as the firms look to trim fixed costs and improve cashflow at a time of intense competition, particularly from South Korean rivals such as Samsung Electronics Co.

Sony Corp. CEO Kazuo Hirai has spent $1.8 billion in the past three months snapping up an assortment of businesses such as medical equipment and cloud gaming, leaving investors to worry he is blowing his firm’s waning finances on a muddled plan to revive the fading giant.

The Japanese electronics and entertainment company Thursday reported a quarterly loss of 24.6 billion yen ($316 million) compared with a 15.5 billion yen loss a year earlier. Tokyo-based Sony Corp. lowered its earnings forecast for the business year through March 2013 to a 20 billion yen ($256 million) profit, down from 30 billion yen projected in May, citing uncertainty in foreign exchange rates and global demand.

Frustrated investors at the company’s annual meeting in Tokyo grilled new President Kazuo Hirai and other board members, demanding to know how the company’s past glory was going to be revived. One shareholder asked why Howard Stringer, whom Hirai replaced, was staying on as chairman when Sony’s performance had been so dismal under his seven-year tenure.

Sony Corp., struggling to rebound from a record loss, is weighing options for its iconic Midtown skyscraper, including a potential sale. The Japanese electronics giant recently held talks with private-equity firm Blackstone Group and its real-estate agents, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, about a potential real-estate transaction involving 550 Madison Ave., according to sources.

Battered by competition from Apple and Samsung, Sony has lost money for four straight years. Today its stock price fell below 1,000 yen for the first time since 1980.

The electronics and entertainment company, which also makes Spider-Man movies, reported Thursday a loss of 255 billion yen ($3.2 billion) for the January-March period — its fifth straight quarterly net loss to round out a fiscal year that was the worst in its 66-year corporate history.

Shares in Japan’s consumer electronics giant Sony Corp slipped quietly to a quarter century low this week, a sign of how the Walkman and PlayStation maker has lost its innovative edge and fallen far behind rivals Apple and Samsung Electronics. On Friday, Panasonic Corp., too, will post a record full-year net loss — of close to $10 billion as it restructures its ailing TV operations.

With new CEO Kazuo Hirai at its helm, the Japanese electronics company said Tuesday it expects an additional tax expense of 300 billion yen in the fiscal fourth quarter ending March 30. It said this non-cash charge stemmed from revaluing U.S. tax assets that are unlikely to be utilized due to its string of annual losses.

Elimination of 6% of the electronics and entertainment giant’s workforce is expected to help return the troubled company to profitability.

When Hirai becomes Sony’s president-CEO on April 1, he takes charge of a company facing a crisis unlike anything it has experienced in its nearly 70-year history. It’s been years since Sony has produced a new mega-hit device. Its TV business is an albatross that has accumulated losses of $10 billion. The company is on course for a fourth straight annual net loss for the year ending March 31.

Michael Lynton will be announced as Howard Stringer‘s Sony Corp Of America successor next week. “The people who know in Culver City are very happy — and very relieved,” a source says about Sony Pictures Entertainment where Lynton  has been chairman alongside Amy Pascal since January 2004.

The Japanese electronics and entertainment company, which a day earlier announced that Kazuo Hirai will replace Howard Stringer as CEO and president effective April 1, said it predicts a net loss of 220 billion yen for the year through March, up from an earlier forecast of 90 billion yen.

Sony veteran Kazuo Hirai will be the company’s next president, Japan’s Nikkei business daily reports. Current CEO Howard Stringer will remain the chairman and CEO of the company, the report says. The executive shuffle, it’s said, will be finalized sometime this month, with Hirai taking the post in April.

Sony Corp. Chairman and CEO Howard Stringer may only have two more quarters to weather at the helm of the Japanese electronics giant before passing the mantle to his successor. Sources familiar with the situation said they expect Stringer — who took the reins in March 2005 — to step down as chief executive at the end of its fiscal year in March. If he opts to relinquish the CEO title, Stringer will likely stay on as chairman, sources said.

Consumer electronics giant Sony Corp. is splitting its television business into three divisions to make operations more accountable as part of efforts to turn around the loss-making business. Sony said its TV division will comprise LCD TVs, outsourcing and next-generation TVs, beginning today.