TOKYO, May 28 (UPI) -- A market analyst and an activist investor have come to opposite conclusions regarding struggling giant Japanese conglomerate Sony, a new report shows.
Starting with the investor, billionaire Daniel Loeb recently flew to Tokyo to propose that Sony spin off its movie studio and its music business to concentrate on what has made Sony a household name over the years: electronics.
Sony, which has been struggling to turn a profit for years, told Loeb it would think it over and that this might take some time.
But a new analytical report of the conglomerate has come to the opposite conclusion, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
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"Electronics is its Achilles' heel and, in our view, it is worth zero," wrote Jeffries consumer technology analyst Atul Goyal.
"In our view, it needs to exit most electronics markets," Goyal wrote.
The conclusion might be startling to those who grew up knowing Sony as the producer of radios and televisions and later the highly successful Sony Walkman and the gaming system PlayStation.
Less well known, Sony makes movies, which happen to make a profit, and runs a music business.
Furthermore, less well known than that, it also runs a financial business and sells insurance, which accounted for 63 percent of its profit in 2012, which happens to be the first time it made a profit in years.
Among others, Sony has produced the Spider Man movies. It also produced "Zero Dark Thirty," about the capturing of terrorist Osama Bin Laden.
It also produces music as diverse as cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Daft Punk.
That business has made $7 billion in the past 10 years.
The electronics division, over the same period, has lost $8.5 billion, the newspaper said.
