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Sony announced its second sale of major offices in as many months today, the company offloading its Tokyo-based Sony City Osaki building for ¥111 billion (around $1.2 billion). Following last month's sale of its US headquarters for $1.1 billion, Sony entered the Osaki building and its premises into a trust, then sold the trust's beneficiary rights to Nippon Building Fund inc. and an unnamed "Japanese institutional investor" in a 60/40 split.
Sony stated the sale was part of the company's reorganization of assets to "strengthen its corporate structure." Then again, the ¥41 billion (around $4.4 billion) raised in operating income by the sale and how it'll help Sony turn an operating profit this fiscal year helps too. The company wants to bring an end to four successive years of losses, including last fiscal year's loss of around $820 million, not to mention the humiliation of Fitch Ratings cutting the company's credit rating to junk status.
While the sale represents another major shift for the company in a year of nothing but, Sony and other Sony Group businesses are to remain in the City Osaki building for five further years under a separate lease agreement.
