索尼失落10年 Sony’s $100 Billion Lost Decade
彭博社報導，索尼公司（SonyCorp.）有1000億美元的理由思考避險基金名人羅布（Daniel Loeb）的分拆提議。
羅布領軍的避險基金Third Point LLC剛買進11億美元的索尼股票，他正敦促這家總部設在東京的公司出售娛樂事業高達20%的股權，專心應付電子事業「價值被大幅低估」的情況。
不過根據彭博社昨天彙整的數據，即使羅布的提案點燃索尼股價逾4年來最旺漲勢，這家值210億美元的企業仍因預估市值相對於獲利比不過90%規模相似的消費性電子產品製造商而暗自憔悴。
自2000年以來，索尼市值已蒸發1000億美元，讓股東失血慘重，如今羅布終於帶頭喊話。里昂證券（CLSAAsia-Pacific Markets）指出，索尼分家經營將會增值28%。儘管麥格理集團（Macquarie Group Ltd.）不覺得索尼股價會如羅布預估大漲60%那麼多，卻認為這位積極派投資人聲稱娛樂事業分拆和獲利能力提升將讓索尼市值提高約30%，這說法「似乎合理」。
Pekin Singer Strauss Asset Management Inc.駐芝加哥基金經理人史特勞斯（Joshua Strauss）接受電訪時說：「索尼積弱不振已久。他們應該分拆娛樂事業嗎？這會創造股東價值嗎？或許吧。當你做這類事情時，分進合擊的效果大過合而為一。」
羅布14日致函索尼執行長平井一夫（Kazuo Hirai），建議索尼應讓索尼娛樂公司（Sony Entertainment）首次公開募股（IPO），藉此出售高達20%的股權，讓索尼現有股東能優先持股，並減少電子事業的槓桿。
索尼當天在電郵聲明稿中回應：「如社長暨執行長平井一夫再三說過，娛樂事業對索尼的成長有重大貢獻，是非賣品。」
旗下基金持有約6400萬股索尼股票的羅布寫道，若獨立掛牌，擁有布魯斯史普林斯汀（Bruce Springsteen）等藝人和美國賣座片廠的索尼娛樂事業，可能會改善其利潤率並提高獲利多達50%。羅布指出，這可能讓索尼市值提高6250億日圓（61億美元），相當於每股540日圓，麥格理認為這說法「似乎合理」。
此外，羅布也建議索尼應在電子事業有望轉虧為盈之際，專心精簡其電子產品陣容。索尼製造的消費性電子產品包括PlayStation電玩主機和Xperia智慧型手機。
索尼東京股價繼昨天大漲10%後，今天再漲0.5%，收在2082日圓，相較之下，14日羅布信件公開前收在1877日圓。（譯者：中央社尹俊傑）1020516
By Angus Whitley, Brooke Sutherland & Naoko Fujimura - May 16, 2013 4:27 PM GMT+0800
Sony Corp. (6758) has a $100 billion reason to consider Daniel Loeb’s breakup proposal.
Visitors walk past the Sony Corp. booth at the CP+ Camera and Photo Imaging Show in Yokohama City, Japan. Founded in 1946, Sony was emblematic of Japan’s post-World War II rise, inventing the Trinitron cathode-ray tube TV in the 1960s and the Walkman portable music player a decade later. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg
May 14 (Bloomberg) -- Dr. Seijiro Takeshita, Director of Mizuho International, discusses the outlook for Sony and reaction to urgings by Dan Loeb of Third Point to sell parts of their business. He speaks on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg Surveillance.” (Source: Bloomberg)
May 10 (Bloomberg) -- Ryoji Musha, president of Musha Research Co. in Tokyo, talks about Japan's consumer electronics industry. Sony Corp. forecast annual profit that missed analysts’ estimates as Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai rolls out new Xperia smartphones and Bravia televisions to recapture market share lost to Samsung Electronics Co. Musha speaks with Susan Li on Bloomberg Television's "First Up." (Source: Bloomberg)
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Loeb, whose Third Point LLC hedge fund just took a $1.1 billion stake in Sony, is pushing the Tokyo-based company to sell as much as 20 percent of its entertainment business and focus on the “considerable and underappreciated value” of its electronics unit. After Loeb’s proposal sparked the biggest rally in Sony shares in more than four years, the $21 billion company still languishes at a cheaper valuation relative to profit than 90 percent of similar-sized consumer electronics makers, according to data compiled by Bloomberg yesterday.
Loeb is approaching Sony after shareholders lost more than $100 billion in market value since 2000. CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets said Sony would be worth 28 percent more in a separation. While estimates from Macquarie Group Ltd.’s Damian Thong fall short of Loeb’s targeted 60 percent stock gain, the analyst said the activist’s claim that spinning off the entertainment unit and boosting its profitability may raise the company’s market value by about 30 percent “seems reasonable.”
“Sony is a chronic underperformer,” Joshua Strauss, Chicago-based co-manager of the Appleseed Fund at Pekin Singer Strauss Asset Management Inc., which oversees about $1 billion, including investments in Japan and Korea, said in a telephone interview. “Should they spin off the entertainment division? Would it create shareholder value? Probably. When you do that sort of thing, the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.”
Entertainment IPO
Loeb said in a May 14 letter to Sony Chief Executive OfficerKazuo Hirai that the company should sell as much as 20 percent of Sony Entertainment in an initial public offering, giving current Sony shareholders priority in owning the shares and reducing leverage for the electronics business.
“As President and CEO Kazuo Hirai has said repeatedly, the entertainment businesses are important contributors to Sony’s growth and are not for sale,” Sony said in an e-mailed statement May 14.
Independently listed, the entertainment business -- featuring artists including Bruce Springsteen and the top-grossing U.S. film studio -- could improve its margins and boost earnings as much as 50 percent, wrote Loeb, whose firm owns about 64 million Sony shares. Loeb said that could add 625 billion yen ($6.1 billion) to Sony’s market value, or 540 yen per share -- an amount that Thong, a Tokyo-based analyst at Macquarie, said in a phone interview “seems reasonable.”
Sony shares, which rose 10 percent yesterday, gained another 0.5 percent to 2,082 yen in Tokyo today. The stock closed at 1,877 yen on May 14 before Loeb’s letter was disclosed.
Walkman Players
In addition, Loeb said Sony should focus on streamlining its electronics offerings as that unit is poised to return to profitability. Sony makes consumer electronics such as the PlayStation game console and Xperia smartphones.
“The value realization within the entertainment business was always secondary to the turnaround in the electronics business,” Thong said in a phone interview. “What this has done is shine a search beam right on a part of the business that should be valued more.”
Founded in 1946, Sony was emblematic of Japan’s post-World War II rise, inventing the Trinitron cathode-ray tube TV in the 1960s and the Walkman portable music player a decade later. Its market value, which topped $120 billion in 2000, has since plunged as consumers shifted to flat-panel TVs, smartphones and mobile devices made by Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea and Cupertino, California-based Apple Inc. (AAPL)
Depressed Value
While a weaker yen, box-office successes like “Skyfall” and the sale of its New Yorkheadquarters helped return Sony to its first profit in five years, the company’s valuation has still lagged behind its historical highs and its peers.
Sony trades at a 5 percent discount to the value of its net assets, compared with an average price-book ratio of about 2.8 for consumer electronics makers with market capitalizations exceeding $1 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Sony’s enterprise value of 2.2 trillion yen is 4.2 times the average of analysts’ estimates for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization this year, the data show. The company’s peers trade at an average of about 8.9 times.
The value of Sony’s entertainment division -- which makes the “Spider-Man” movies through itsCulver City, California-based Sony Pictures and also represents music artists including Grammy winner Adele -- isn’t being realized in the company’s current structure, said Michael Souers, an equity analyst at Standard & Poor’s.
Breakup Analysis
“It’s totally being weighed down by the struggling consumer electronics unit and the fact that it’s had to subsidize that unit,” Souers said in a phone interview from New York. A partial spinoff “would make sense for them. And from a managerial perspective, they could focus a little bit more on turning around the electronics business.”
A sum-of-the-parts analysis by Christian Dinwoodie, a Tokyo-based analyst at CLSA, values Sony at 2,400 yen a share, 28 percent higher than its price May 14, before Loeb’s proposal lifted the stock. Spinning off part of the entertainment business would give Sony an infusion of capital and allow it to transfer some debt to the new entity, Dinwoodie wrote in a May 14 report.
Sony has pursued a similar approach before. It raised 320 billion yen in 2007 when it spun off its financial services unit in an IPO. Sony still owns 60 percent of the banking and insurance business, known as Sony Financial Holdings Inc. (8729)
Activist Failures
Still, Loeb’s push faces hurdles in a culture that traditionally hasn’t been welcoming to overseas activist investors, said Strauss of Pekin Singer Strauss.
In the early 1990s, oilman T. Boone Pickens failed to win a board seat at auto parts dealer Koito Manufacturing Co. (7276) Last month, Seibu Holdings Inc. said it won’t offer any concessions to New York-based private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP, the hotel and rail operator’s biggest investor, in its push for board seats and a bigger stake.
“The Japanese don’t care,” Strauss said. “They’re not beholden to shareholders in that country. Some guy in New York is not going to convince Japanese companies to change their way of doing things.”
Loeb’s plans for Sony are designed to maximize his own returns at the possible expense of the company’s long-term viability, said Amir Anvarzadeh, a Singapore-based manager for Japanese equity sales at BGC Partners Inc. Without the cash flow of the entertainment business, Sony’s consumer electronics will struggle, he said.
‘Quick Buck’
“In Japan, activist investors have never been successful - - it’s not the type of capitalism that Japan likes,” Anvarzadeh said in a phone interview. “This guy doesn’t care about Sony. He just wants to make a quick buck.”
Still, Nobuo Sayama, a partner at Tokyo-based private-equity firm Integral Corp., said the return of activist investors to Japan is a positive development.
Loeb’s interest “is something Sony or Japan as a whole should welcome,” he said in a phone interview. “The industry should be grateful for such proposals from investors at home or abroad.”
Sony shareholders have nothing to lose should the company meet Loeb’s demands, said Thong, the Macquarie analyst. Even after selling 20 percent of the entertainment business in an IPO, Sony would retain control and bank any profits, he said.
“It’s primarily a way of making transparent a part of the business which is relatively untransparent,” Thong said. “Everyone’s excited not just in the context of Sony but of corporate activism accelerating change in Japanese firms or the Japanese economy in general. This provides additional reasons to believe that change is in the air.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Angus Whitley in Sydney at awhitley1@bloomberg.net; Brooke Sutherland in New York at bsutherland7@bloomberg.net; Naoko Fujimura in Tokyo atnfujimura@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Sarah Rabil at srabil@bloomberg.net
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