The advertising and marketing company
Dentsu
has
announced
on Wednesday that it will transfer the majority ownership in its
Geneon Entertainment
home video subsidiary to
NBC Universal
's
Universal Pictures International
Entertainmnent (UPIE). UPIE has agreed to merge
Geneon Entertainment
with its own
Universal Pictures
Japan (UPJ), which handles operations in the country. The transfer agreement was signed on November 7, and the actual transfer is scheduled to take place at the end of the month. The merger of UPJ and
Geneon
will take place in February of next year, and the resulting company will assume a new name. UPIE will own 80.1% of the new company, while
Dentsu
will retain 19.9%.
Currently,
Geneon Entertainment
has 3.6 billion yen (about US$37 million) in capital, which is 100% owned by
Dentsu
.
Geneon Entertainment
President and CEO
Sumio Kiga
oversaw 178 employees as of the end of October. Pioneer had originally established the company in March 1981 to produce videos in the
Laserdisc
format.
Dentsu
acquired the majority of the outstanding shares in
Pioneer Entertainment
and
renamed
the company as
Geneon Entertainment
in 2003.
Geneon
has already been distributing
Universal Pictures
' DVDs in Japan since March of this year.