Sony Corp.¡¯s movie and TV unit will snap up Britain¡¯s CSC media network, adding to a string of acquisitions designed to shift its focus from movies to higher-margin television programing.
Sony Pictures Television, the company¡¯s TV programing and network unit, said on Thursday it would buy CSC for ?107 million ($180 million), acquiring 16 channels available on cable and satellite to bring its total channels in Britain to 25.
Sony¡¯s chief executive Kazuo Hirai has pledged to strengthen its U.S.-based entertainment content business, a reliable profit driver along with its financial services, as he struggles to pull its electronics business back into the black.
Sony Pictures Television will buy 100 percent of CSC¡¯s shares, having struck a deal with majority shareholder Veronis Suhler Stevenson.
In the most recent business year to March 31, Sony¡¯s TV network unit reported a 26 percent increase in sales to $1.5 billion while its movie unit revenue shrank 5.4 percent to $4.1 billion. The company is targeting a 4.5 percent increase in sales for the whole Sony Pictures business to $8.4 billion this year.
Sony Pictures owns or holds stakes in 64 channels around the world, having added two to its roster last year. It upped its stake in India¡¯s Multi Screen Media, which had 499 subscribers as of March, to 100 percent this month, after increasing its shares in the Game Show Network, a U.S. network, to a majority stake in December 2012.
Last year, Hirai rebuffed activist investor Daniel Loeb¡¯s proposal to spin off the entertainment unit into a separately listed company, saying it was important to fully own the business, but improved its disclosure by publishing detailed quarterly figures for the unit¡¯s operations.
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