This was mostly expected.
Kadokawa was willing to sell but only if the buyer is Japanese and only if they bought the entire company.
Sony met the first condition but not the latter.
All they wanted was the manga/anime side.
FROM they would've liked but the total price was beyond them, and not just in initial cost--that they could pay, if barely--but the annual operating cost, added to their own studio costs would've limited their option for years and years. Their annual free cash flow is actually low for such a big company.
As revealed when Ryan...left...their net margins have been declining for years and have reached troubling territory in the 12% range. (Microsoft runs at an absurd 45%). As a result, Sony's acquisition budget in recent years has been running around $4B a year. And that is just about the market value of KADAKAWA. Note that $321M bought Sony 10%.
Their ambitions are bigger than their net income.
As a side note: the continual failure of Sony's SPIDER-MAN adjacent movies has given rise to a rumor that they are now willing to sell the movie rights to the franchise back to Disney/Marvel. Still just a rumor for now.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram