Financial realities are setting in for Sony, who are reported to be considering buyers or renters for its expensive New York headquarters. The Sony Building (formerly an AT&T building) in Midtown New York is a 37-storey skyscraper, which appears to be more floors than Sony can afford right now. The company has held real-estate talks over whether to sell the building outright and move to a new location, to sell and lease back a portion of the space or to just lease out certain floors to interested parties.
If Sony does end up selling the entire building, it could be worth an estimated $700 million to $1 billion USD. That’d be quite a chunk of money to help offset the company’s record financial losses of $5.7 billion USD from last year.
The building currently houses Sony’s music and movie divisions, though there is also a ‘technology lab’ in the basement and corporate offices on higher floors. It has been owned by Sony since 1992.
New CEO Kaz Hirai has been looking for ways to ‘restructure’ (translation: ‘save money for’) the company and has already threatened to cut 6% of Sony’s global workforce.
Source: New York Post
