One year and about $2 billion in lost market value later, it may be time for Sony Corp. to take Daniel Loeb's advice about breaking up.
Even after making restructuring attempts, such as the sale of its personal computer division, Sony remains 12 percent lower than when activist investor Loeb first urged a separation of the entertainment business last May so that the company could focus on its struggling electronics business. Last week, Sony forecast an annual loss, its sixth in seven years, mostly because of swelling restructuring charges. The shares had subsequently plunged 8.8 percent as of last Friday.
"Last year there was some hope, and now we're seeing a capitulation of that hope," Daniel Ernst, an analyst at Hudson Square Research Inc. in New York, said in a phone interview. "The worse the electronics part of the company does, the more pressure there will be to look at" Loeb's suggestion.