Sammy Purchase SEGA!!! News
Chris Leyton
18/05/2004
Sammy announces intentions to acquire remaining stock of SEGA and complete a full take-over…
The on-going saga regarding the acquisition of SEGA by Sammy Corp today moved a step further, as Sammy representatives confirmed plans to purchase the remaining three-quarters of SEGA Corp it doesnāt own for approximately 165 billion yen ($1.45billion) in stock.
Sammy President Hajime Satomi will head a new holding company that will purchase all remaining shares of SEGA and Sammy in October; Sammy shareholders will control 72% of the new company, which is reported to have combined annual sales of 501 billion yen during this fiscal year.
Sega shareholders will receive 0.28 share of the holding company for each Sega shares, whilst Sammy shareholders will receive one of the new company's shares for each Sammy share; the statement said. Sammy has 87.5 million shares outstanding and controls 22.4 percent of Sega stock.
The move has continued to cause concern with key SEGA personnel, whilst a leading Tokyo based analyst for JP Morgan Securities Asia claimed āSatomi wants to control everything and this is easier for him,ā quipping that Satomi āmay look to cut costs in SEGAās research and development.ā
Certainly Sammy will continue to expand its business by using SEGAās image and presence in the west; however SEGA representatives continue to remain defiant, with Scott Steinberg, Vice-President Marketing Sega of America recently claiming during an E3 interview that āthereās no resource sharing. We havenāt decided how to do that,ā
SEGA has been no stranger to take-overās in the past, most famously pulling away from a proposed merger with Bandai in 1997 at the last minute.
However you can be sure that the single-minded determination of Satomi-san will begin to push this further once the deal is finalised; leaving worrying question marks over the resurgence of SEGA in recent years.