Sony’s financial performance has recently been under scrutiny with its latest quarterly earnings call revealing several surprises. The PC business is being sold, the TV business is being separated from the core group with five thousand job cuts between those two announcements alone.

A filing released by the corporation on Feb 13th revealed that the influential Sony investor Third Point was not among the top ten shareholders. You may remember Third Point with outspoken frontman Daniel Loeb calling for drastic changes at the company during the past year.

Was does this mean for Sony Corp?

Daniel Loeb – a well-known name in the investment community, particularly after a confrontation with Sony Corp. which inadvertently drew the respectable Hollywood director George Clooney to the spotlight, calling Loeb a “carpetbagger” who does “not create jobs”. This is the man credited with putting immense pressure on Sony to sell off underperforming divisions, including the electronics arm at one point.

The recent filing from Sony doesn’t present Loeb’s investment group Third Point in the top ten investors, prompting questions. Neither company has yet commented.

Third Point previously indicated a plan to increase it’s shares in Sony, but later blamed it’s Sony stock for weighing down its own financial performance. Is Third Point trying to put out fires it its own house by downplaying it’s dependence on Sony? Perhaps Sony’s end of year results projections concern the investment group. On the positive side for Sony, this could potentially relieve pressure and allow the company to complete changes as it sees fit.

In the recently published quarterly earnings results, Sony revealed the new triple column focus of the company to be Mobile, Game and Imaging. Xperia smartphones and PlayStation 4 sales have proved strong growth and profit performers, while the Imaging division finally showed more upbeat prospects after some slow progress. The TV and PC changes seem to follow as a natural part of Sony becoming what it wants/needs to be.

Sony’s stock appears to have bounced back after the financial results release which raised questions over CEO Kaz Hirai’s leadership.

Image Courtesy of Yahoo Finance

Discuss:

Has Third Point cashed out some chips to lessen exposure to Sony profit problems? Is this good or bad for Sony?

[Via Reuters]