Moody's eyes up Sony's debt: Hmm... junk? Bam! Shares drop 11% Sony shares plunged 11 per cent in Tokyo overnight while ratings agency Moody's has placed the Japanese firm's debt on review for a downgrade that could take it to junk status. Sony said yesterday it was cutting its full-year profit forecast by 40 per cent after another disappointing quarter in tellies and game consoles. The …
There are fewer PS4 launch titles and they are far worse than the Xbox One's. For instance Forza 5 (1080p 60fps) pisses all over the pathetic DriveClub.....
The PS4 can't manage to run all it's games in 1080p either - BF4 is upscaled on the PS4 - and looks better on the Xbox One - The PS4 has to scale in software - whereas the Xbox One has a hardware scaler.....
There's been talk of Sony dumping the movie/entertainment side for quite a while. Pity they always say that isn't on the table every quarter. They really need to split it off as a separate company at least and let the two companies sink or swim on their own. Heck, being more able to focus clearly on producing their own products they could both do better.
Dump film music, keep games, take TV HiFi Camera ect up market again and drop the cheap crap.
I have a lot of decent Sony stuff, none of it was cheap.
One of the worst LCD TVs I have seen - cheap Sony, best, expensive Sony, you would not think they were same manufacturer.
My 1982 portable video recorder still works!
Yes I am old enough to remember they were premium and worth the premium, they still have the odd product like this, but they have to stop competing against the Koreans and start competing on quality rather than price again.
They need to remember why people bought Trinitron TVs, and it was NOT the price
they do have some good products. but the company never really changed their tone after using Neil Diamond as a pusher for kernel skulduggery, and they continue to march at the head of the parade of lockdown for technology. so trust among the True Believers is pretty... nil.
Is not Sonys - they have been around for many a year - and will continue to do so for a fair few more I would suggest. However, half the problem for these corporations is that that industry "experts", analysts and investors are still listening to the fuckwits at Moodys rather than doing their own analysis.
With just a little bit of research, you can see why the system is broken and why we all have to suffer for the benefit of a few: crony capitalism
A quick search finds that Sony, at
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/info/faq/dividend.html
has ALREADY announced their 2013 corporate dividend, ¥12.50 to be started on December 2, 2013. For those who don't understand the conversion, that's $0.126 / €0.0938 per share based upon exchange rate conversion as of today, 3 November 2013.
Now that not may sound like much but, according to
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/stock/information.html#module0
Sony has 1,011,950,206 common stock shares in circulation - that's over 1 billion, folks.
So 1,011,950,206 x ¥12.50 = ¥12649377575...or $128,133,889.54.
So Sony has no problem handing out $128.123 million dollars to its shareholders even as they declare a losing year. Sony is willing to pay out these dividends rather than withholding shareholder benefits to help pay down their long term debt, a long term debt that they have serviced so poorly that they have an almost-junk bond, Baa3, rating.
Lesson: It is far more important to placate Wall Street than to have sound long-term corporate financial policy. It is far more important to spoon feed shareholders the crap that they want to hear - that they are important and that capitalism works for their sole interests - than to tell them the truth, that shareholders are supposed to share in the risks of capitalism as granted them in their stock purchase. Let the customers suffer the greatest burden (by having inflated prices, quality of goods or service cutbacks, anything necessary to increase profit margin) in order to make up for the fact that monies are being drained away to pay shareholders an unearned bonuses, as their 'personally owned corporation' isn't performing and is not earning enough to service all its past obligations.
Part of this systemic bias is due to who owns a large majority of Sony shares: as per Sony.net, the largest holders are the Japanese themselves, both individuals and institutional. Therefore, Sony is appeasing the government banking system by paying a dividend it really cannot afford, in order to assure its stockholders that their investment has (undeserved) returns and, thereby, guaranteeing continued faith in the markets (and, by connection via definition, itself as well).
So while the peasants eat bread and water, the aristocracy plays their old game: keep shuffling money between themselves and toast the good times.
Did your self-righteous moronic reply also take into account further research into Sony's past financials??
No, it did not, did it?
You spewed garbage out of your pie hole without seeking additional information to confirm your suspicions. Sony has been paying dividends every year, on average $0.10/share, per historical financials.
So, in your arrogance, you think Moody's gave a Baa3 rating just because of this single year?? Because that is what you believe, saying that my opinion must also be based upon this single year's performance.
If you had bothered to inform yourself before saying worthless opinions, you would have found all this out prior to posting. But you didn't, so you didn't.
Didn't Sony grease them enough this time?
Moody's themselves admitted their ratings are merely suggestions that must not be taken too seriously: after the subprime fiasco by confessing that "the bar moves so quickly, it is impossible to predict". Wonder where is that Kolchinsky guy now? Sleeping with the fishes?
It's sad, after all they have done, we still haven't managed to get rid of these ignorant, overpaid pompous gits and worse allow them to offer opinions on how to manage our monies.
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