Ripplewood To Sell Stake In Columbia Music

Ripplewood Holdings will sell its stake in Japan’s Columbia Music Entertainment for $27 million, as the U.S. buyout shop exits investments in non-financial companies.

RHJ International, the Brussels-listed arm of the U.S. group, said it has agreed to sell its 25.5 percent stake in the music company to Japan’s Faith Inc. for ¥2.5 billion ($27.3 million).

Faith, which develops content for mobile phones, said it will acquire an additional 5.9 percent of Columbia from a Ripplewood-related company.

RHJ also said it sold about half of its 20 percent stake in U-Shin, a Japan-based maker of auto parts, for ¥1.9 billion.

RHJ said the divestitures totalled ¥4.4 billion against a book value of ¥4.6 billion.

The sales are part of an effort to shed industrial investments and become a “focused financial services firm”, RHJ said in a statement.

(Reporting by Taiga Uranaka)