There is an activist shareholder currently trying to influence Sony to drive up share prices and one of his suggestions was to liquidate holdings like the one Sony has in Olympus so some sites are attributing the move to him. I am not sure if that is the reason why, but Olympus hasn’t been doing well lately and Sony’s venture with them has concluded so that seems like a more likely reason
Sony said in a statement it decided to sell “considering that the initial purpose of the capital alliance to establish collaboration between Sony and Olympus has been accomplished and after reviewing the rationale for owning the Olympus shares.”
Sony already sold off around half of their investment in Olympus previously which made up 11.5% of outstanding shares to fund its own restructuring and now they will liquidate the remaining 5%, which could be reinvested into the company. Activist investors seem to everywhere nowadays, lets hope Sony is making the sale for the right reasons and not just because an investor thinks their stock should be significantly higher.
via reuters
