S&P puts Sony on negative credit watch

[garyopa]

No signs that the company will come out of red soon, financial group claims



Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's has downgraded Sony’s credit rating to A-, citing concerns over long-term corporate credit and senior unsecured debt ratings.

The likelihood of Sony's weak earnings persisting "has increased", the ratings group said.

"There are no signs of a halt to the deterioration in the earnings of the company's core flat panel TV business. In addition, Sony's financial burden is likely to increase in tandem with the company's making Sony Ericsson a wholly owned subsidiary.

"Taking these factors into consideration, we have concluded that we need to review the prospects for Sony's operating and financial performance and verify the effects on the rating."

Standard & Poor's' review comes after Sony reported significant quarterly losses to investors. Last week the company announced a loss of $443 million for the second quarter ending 30th September.

Standard and Poor's, whose influence has come under scrutiny after downgrading the US's credit rating, predicts Sony will lose ¥90 billion for fiscal 2011, which would represent a fourth straight year in the red.

The end is here, maybe time for Apple or Google to buy Sony! * hehe * - Or remember the domains 'microsoft-sony' registered by M$

In any case, it going to take a lot for Sony to get back into the 'black' and now with them spending R&D on the rumored PS4, it might be a long trip ahead for those investors still wishing to bank on them.

NEWS SOURCE: Sony on Credit Watch (via) Develop-Online

Again our thanks to 'billysastard' for this new news item!

[Xenogears V]

F*ck this company...Where was S&P bofore crisis?. Any rating company had predicted this..

[Diztructor]

lol A- rating isnt that bad, but looking at the global economy how is this even news worthy when other countries governments are bankrupt and companies world-wide are having to cut back or even cease trading.

nice spin to a basically sony fiscal profits drop report.

[billysastard]

lol A- rating isnt that bad, but looking at the global economy how is this even news worthy when other countries governments are bankrupt and companies world-wide are having to cut back or even cease trading.

nice spin to a basically sony fiscal profits drop report.

you'll find that an a- rating isnt as good as you think but of greater importance is the fact that a reduced credit rating will affect not only the availability of credit but also the cost of loans and unlike a country nobody is going to sink billions into an electronics / media company to keep it afloat, at present sony is loosing money on several fronts (most notably cellphones, tv's and its movie companies) at a time when it is having to raise capital to plough into r&d for a new playstation model, and a way to improve its product lines to compete with the likes of samsung or lucky goldstar, remember also that returns on its new psv handheld will be a long time coming as it has to be price sensitive at launch so may not see a profit for a few years.

and no, this isnt spin on a 4 year long financial loss (nintendo suffered a huge profit loss), its a downgrade of the credit worthiness of a major international company which could have a knock on effect to other tech companies in financial markets.

[MadonnaProject]

Finding it hard to feel bad for sony, but people losing jobs is terrible either ways.

[billysastard]

people losing jobs is terrible either ways.

its sony, and its money they are loosing but if it came to sony staff i dont think i'd loose too much sleep.