As of today it seems the Navarre Corporation is looking to arrange the sale of FUNimation Entertainment; or as they put it "Evaluating Strategic Alternatives for FUNimation Entertainment". When according to the press release today:"Navarre is pursuing a more focused strategy. Now that we have substantially reduced debt and improved operating margins, we are focusing our efforts on driving revenue, particularly in new product lines. We are concentrating all efforts on our distribution and software publishing businesses where we have significant expertise and considerable systems and physical assets that can be leveraged. The Punch! acquisition announced last week strengthens our software publishing business and demonstrates a step in our execution of this strategy," stated Cary L. Deacon, Chief Executive Officer.
So then, what exactly does that mean? Sounds to me like the Navarre Corp. is wanting to focus on something other than the production of anime, and stick with what they say they are best at.
"FUNimation Entertainment's strategy and capital requirements are distinctly different from those of the Company's core business. While FUNimation's recent results have generally met expectations, the strategies required to grow the business include co-productions of original anime content, social networks and digital broadcasting. The Company anticipates that those plans are best executed with ownership that has assets or expertise in those areas.
The Company will be discussing its going-forward strategy and financial outlook in greater detail next week in connection with its FY 2010 year end conference call. That conference call is scheduled to take place at 11:00 a.m. ET, Friday, June 4, 2010."
One thing is definitely for sure, this move is gonna have a lot of fans very nervous. I'm sure there are going to be those that think this is the beginning of the end, and others that are surely going to be blaming this on the rising issues that have recently been expressed by other companies concerning illegal anime.
For the most part though, I've noticed that for today, a great many of the fans are of the "Wait and see" variety, and are either un-willing to delve too deep just yet, or are trusting that if a proposed sale of FUNimation is designed, that the company will only be in a much more focused and self-controlled stance.
While this may be the start of either worse things in store for the industry, or better things. I too am of the opinion that we should ride this out, and see where it goes.