The Terre Haute Sony DADC facility will not be affected by a restructuring of Sony Corp. announced this week in Japan, a SONY spokeswoman said Thursday.
Among other changes, the Tokyo-based company announced it was spinning off its Blu-ray device manufacturing division.
Although Blu-ray discs are produced in Terre Haute, the move will have no effect on the Terre Haute plant, which employs about 1,000 people, said Lisa Gephardt, a SONY spokeswoman in New York.
“It’s remaining exactly where it was,” she said in a telephone interview Thursday.
The Terre Haute plant makes Blu-ray “media,” or discs, but not the Blu-ray machines. The spinoff announced Monday in Japan affects the company’s Video and Sound division, which makes headphones and Blu-ray players, according to media reports.
Sony also announced Shoji Nemoto will now lead the company’s disc manufacturing division.
Last year, Sony spun off its TV manufacturing business and sold its Vaio personal computer unit. That, and the latest moves, are designed to return the company to profitability after years of losses. According to analysts, the restructuring will help Sony focus on its most profitable parts, such as PlayStation gaming and image sensors.
Even the spinoff of the Blu-ray player manufacturing unit does not equal a sale. A spinoff is generally a move by a corporation often to detach a struggling division by issuing shares in what becomes a new corporation. Shares in the new entity are distributed to parent company shareholders in proportion to their ownership stake. The parent company will often retain a significant ownership stake in the new corporation.
Sony DADC is a global disc and digital service provider for the entertainment, education and information industries, offering digital and physical supply chain solutions, software services and optical media replication services. The company’s network consists of service offices, optical media production, distribution and digital facilities in 19 countries, according to the Sony DADC website.
Terre Haute’s Sony DADC facility, 1800 N. Fruitridge Ave., is wholly owned by Sony Corp. and opened in 1983.