Sony sells shares in medical information firm M3 as part of its ongoing business reorganization

As part of its efforts to transform its business portfolio and reorganize its assets, electronics giant Sony is selling 95,000 of its 886,908 shares (or approximately 10.7% of its stake) in M3, an online medical information, marketing and research holding.

After the sale, Sony will remain a major shareholder (49.8 percent, down 6 percentage points from its 55.8 percent stake before the deal) of M3, and says it will ‘continue to pursue opportunities to collaborate with M3’.

Although Sony is still evaluating the aggregate impact of this deal, the company says it expects to record a gain within operating income in connection with the sale of approximately 115 billion yen ($1.23 billion) during the fourth quarter for the current fiscal year.

As stated earlier this month, Sony has marked certain of its assets for possible sale as part of an initiative to reorganize its business.

In its quest to stabilize and return to profitability, Sony managed to hold onto modest operating profits during its third fiscal quarter, reporting $20.84 billion (¥1.948 trillion) in revenue and $496 million (¥46.4 billion) in operating income. It did, however, still report a net loss of $115 million (¥10.8 billion) for the quarter.

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