Sony Sells Its Madison Avenue Headquarters For $1.1 Billion
After paying off debt, Sony aiming to obtain around $770 million from sale.
Sony has announced that it's selling its U.S. headquarters building located on Madison Avenue in New York City.
Selling it to a real estate consortium managed by The Chetrit Group, the sale price for the 37-story building is $1.1 billion.
"Given the opportunities and challenges in the current economic and real estate landscape, selling 550 Madison now is a timely and logical strategic move," said Sony Corporation of America President Nicole Seligman.
Sony, which is cutting 10,000 jobs worldwide, is also said to be looking for a buyer for its Tokyo building. The Japanese technology firm is reportedly seeking a price between $1 billion and $1.5 billion.
After paying back debt stemming from its Madison Avenue building, Sony aims to keep around $770 million from sale. "Sony is undertaking a range of initiatives to strengthen its financial foundation and business competitiveness and for future growth," the company added.
"At the same time, Sony is balancing cash inflows and outflows while working to improve its cash flow by carefully selecting investments, selling assets and strengthening control of working capital such as inventory. This sale is made as a part of such initiatives."
Although Sony is selling its Madison Avenue headquarters, several of its businesses including Sony Music Entertainment, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Sony Pictures Entertainment, among others will remain in the building for the next few years.
Reality Distortion Field is present everywhere unfortunately.
Though I suppose Sony's crimes (other than the rootkit incident back in 2001 and the PSN hack) is minor compared to EA's. Heck, EA's CEO stated that he wants a super micro-transaction in FPS games, charging 1 dollar or 10 cents for every magazine of bullets you use.
Well, it teaches gamers to be mindful and not be wasteful
the days when sony was the best at tech are gone... their consumer grade cameras cant focus for crap compared to other brands and even other cheaper cameras...
their tvs, stacked next to cheaper brands, dont offer a compelling enough reason to warrent the 2X price difference.
and sony hasn't had a main stream product outside of gaming sense the walk man because they sit on great ideas till its to damn late... they could have had the ipod, but they waited till apple filled the market with "we are the best, be all end all, and we make things just work" and on one could really compete with them in a main stream setting there... and arguable never did, as the mp3 player went away and made way for the smartphones.
I suppose they're doing the same thing as Nokia is doing. Besides, it looks better on the balance sheet and gives them more breathing room.
Apple innovations in the last 5 years include - iPhone (smartphones as we know today), iPad (tablet as we know today), Mac Book Air's (Ultra thin but powerful laptops), Apple TV (tiny tv boxes with no moving parts) and the AppStore software distribution model.
What other company comes even close to that kind of innovation track record? Innovation that create new product categories and generate loads of money.
-IvanTO