Bilibili announced it got a strategic investment of $400 million from Sony. The two parties will also cooperate in multiple fields, especially in the fields of animation and mobile games.
According to the agreement, Sony will subscribe for a total of 17,310,696 Class Z common shares of Bilibili through a wholly-owned subsidiary at a total consideration of approximately $400 million.
The purchase price for Sony is USD 23.1071 per Class Z common stock, which is equivalent to USD 23.1071 for each Bilibili American Depositary Share (ADS).
The transaction is expected to be completed soon when Sony will hold approximately 4.98% of the total issued shares of Bilibili through its subsidiaries.
Both sides have a long history of business cooperation in animation, games, music and other fields.
Since 2014, Bilibili has cooperated with Sony's wholly-owned subsidiary Aniplex in the procurement of animation copyrights, and in 2016 announced its exclusive agent for the mobile game "Fate / Grand Order" (Fate / Grand Order) under Aniplex.
Recently, Bilibili has also reached strategic cooperation with Sony Music, users can watch the music library MV of Sony Music in Bilibili.
This round of financing is another important strategic investor introduced by Bilibili since its listing, following Tencent and Ali. In October 2018, Bilibili received a $320 million investment from Tencent. In February 2019, Alibaba announced its shareholding in Bilibili.
Bilibili shares went up by 6% to $27.79 in pre-market trading.
