Sony Moves Its City Osaki Building For $1.2 Billion As Part Of Transformation

These are interesting times for Sony. The company's great rise has given way to tougher times of late, with intense competition in everything from digital imaging, to gaming, to HDTVs. As these major corporations often do in times of contractions, Sony has announced that it has sold its Sony City Osaki office building and premises to Nippon Building Fund Inc. and a Japanese institutional investor. The sale was structured such that Sony placed the office building and premises in a trust and then sold the trust beneficiary rights. Sony and other Sony Group businesses will remain in the building for a period of five years after the sale under a lease agreement entered into separately.


The price is fairly wild. It's netting some 111.1 billion yen, which is around $1.2 billion U.S. As a result of the sale, Sony expects to realize a gain on the sale of approximately 41 billion yen, to be recorded as operating income, in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013. In the short-term, Sony adds a huge amount of cash to its stockpile while also keeping the rights to be in the building, as to not have a major impact on those operations.

Sony stated that this sale was conducted as part of its ongoing "transformation," but it's unclear if more of these real estate moves (or otherwise) are in the pipeline.