ANN wrote:The Japanese general trading company Sojitz Corporation has announced on Wednesday that it will dissolve ARM, the subsidiary that promoted anime licensing and distribution in North America, by next February. Sojitz explained in its announcement that it does not expect earnings to grow in this marketplace as it originally expected when ARM was established in 2006. As a result, it is "redistributing its management resources." ARM's dissolution is not expected to affect its licenses with the North American anime distributor FUNimation Entertainment.
When Sojitz indirectly invested in 20% of the American distributor A.D. Vision through the Japan Contents Investment Business Limited Partnership (JCI) in 2006, JCI established ARM to handle licensing. After what A.D. Vision CEO John Ledford described as a "breakup" with Sojitz, ARM transfered the rights to more than 30 of its titles to FUNimation.
JCI established ARM as a wholly owned subsidiary in April of 2006 with 492,092,500 yen (about US$5 million) in capital. JCI was itself established by Sojitz (64%), the Development Bank of Japan (28%), and The Klockworx Co., Ltd. (8%).
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