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The story
Reports have spread that economics-focused outlet “Sentaku” (sentaku.co.jp) suggested Square Enix is considering taking itself private, prompting a reaction on 5ch’s Hardware/Industry (“Geha”) board. The company has long been noted for a structure in which the founding Fukushima family retains a firm grip on shares, relying relatively little on outside capital markets. In the thread, some pointed to the stock’s sharp jump as evidence the report holds water, while a persistent, cooler camp argued it’s just an unsourced rumor running wild that will end with an official denial — making the credibility of the report itself the biggest point of contention.
Report: Square Enix eyed for going private
Source: sentaku.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
is this actually real?
Normally you'd expect downsizing and business restructuring.
Since the owner-family is the top shareholder, an immediate takeover seems unlikely,
but decisions would probably come easier than when it was publicly listed.
Not sure if they'd go that cold-blooded though.
Pachinko machine makers are publicly listed too as a matter of course, so that's got nothing to do with it.
The stock's already spiked, so just take the profit and bail.
Everyone'd rather have cash than perks anyway.
Someone's probably getting referred to prosecutors for spreading false rumors (a real securities-law offense in Japan) at this rate.
That's a solid point right there
It's not like they're raising capital from the market
Does the Fukushima family even intend to keep holding Square Enix stock?
Seems pretty credible
There was zero movement until yesterday — no insider-trading-style activity beforehand, nothing.
And the opening move is this sketchy source.
Suckers are piling in after taking the bait,
and I bet it ends with Square Enix officially denying it and everyone getting cleaned out.
Chinese capital, maybe, but Dentsu would be a disaster.
Domestically they survive on ad deals, policy, and subsidies, but overseas — where none of that works — they're basically wiped out.
It's been a year already.
And they've shut down all kinds of services since then.
And what they did with that time was port FF and other titles to Switch and PC.
Basically pointless.
It's actually been 2 years and 3 months already
That makes it even worse lol
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This, exactly
Sounds kind of anarchist
Got hit by the weak yen maybe?
Lol, nearly 3,300 employees on a non-consolidated basis alone
Not making much money given the headcount…
And only the higher-ups will survive, huh lol
Worst-case scenario
If that happens, they'll probably outsource Dragon Quest and FF to Chinese studios, and something better than what we have now will come out of it
Everyone wins, no?
There's a chance mediocre games rushed out just to hit earnings targets decrease,
but there's also a chance you just get more titles stuck in development limbo like Forspoken.
Well, they'll stop caring about outside opinions, so it wouldn't be surprising if Square Enix goes even further off the rails and drowns itself in shovelware.
Being publicly listed isn't really about that in the first place though
Their payout ratio is on the high side,
but the stock's overvalued, so if you just look at the dividend yield it feels underwhelming
Supporting the whole workforce on that alone is tough
But there's nothing else promising in the pipeline either…
Background and key points of this discussion
The trend of publicly listed companies choosing to go private (via MBOs or buyouts by major shareholders) has been increasing both in Japan and abroad in recent years, driven by the cost of dealing with activist investors and a desire for long-term management unconstrained by quarterly earnings disclosures. Square Enix still has the founding Fukushima family as a major shareholder, which is seen as making sudden shifts in management policy driven by outside capital unlikely — though the company has also faced pressure from activist shareholders to improve management efficiency. The thread was split mainly on two points: how credible the originating report is, and how to interpret the sharp stock price jump. No official announcement or timely disclosure had been confirmed as of the time of the article. Also left unaddressed in the thread was the fact that delisting doesn’t necessarily mean scaling back the business or being sold off — many companies continue to operate independently after going private.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, “Geha”) thread “[Sad News] Square Enix Headed for Delisting wwwwwwwwww.”
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