Oasis Management Company, a Hong Kong-based investment firm, has reportedly acquired a significant stake in Japanese media giant Kadokawa.
As reported by Automaton, the firm now owns an 8.86% stake in Kadokawa after purchasing over 13 million shares. Kadokawa famously owns the likes of FromSoftware (Elden Ring), Spike Chunsoft (Danganronpa) and Acquire (Mario & Luigi: Brothership) in the games industry, but also has a massive hold on multiple entertainment sectors.
So why is this significant? Well, according to Automaton, Oasis notes that the purpose of such a significant investment is so it can engage in “important proposal activities”, which generally means it wishes to influence how companies operate in an effort to boost shareholder returns.
With Oasis specifically, it infamously approached Nintendo back in 2014 and urged the company to invest heavily in free-to-play games for the likes of Android and iOS. The entire letter is still visible online to this day (thanks, Dr. Serkan Toto), in which you can read utterly baffling lines like “Just think of paying 99 cents just to get Mario to jump a little higher”, or “unfortunately, I have to go through the trouble of buying a Nintendo device (one that is sold at a loss) to access Mario”.
So with this in mind, who knows what plans Oasis has in store for Kadokawa? We’re not filled with confidence, that’s for sure.
