Bandai Namco Holdings, Inc. announced on Thursday that it plans to make Anime Consortium Japan (ACJ) into a wholly owned subsidiary. The company already owns a 36.1% stake in ACJ, and on March 31 it aims to purchase the remaining 309,780 shares from the 14 other companies that have invested. The acquisition is valued at 2.1 billion yen (about US$18.5 million).

Bandai Namco Holdings Inc., Asatsu-DK Inc., and Aniplex Inc. established ACJ in November 2014 to develop a new internet streaming platform for overseas markets along with an e-commerce business for official anime content. Additional initial shareholders included Toei Animation, Sunrise, TMS Entertainment, Nihon Ad Systems, Dentsu Inc., and Cool Japan. Six more companies — Kodansha, Shueisha, Shogakukan, Kadokawa, Bushiroad Inc., Good Smile Company — invested in ACJ in 2015. Bandai Namco Entertainment's executive vice president Shin Unozawa serves as ACJ's representative.

Online streaming service Daisuki merged with ACJ when ACJ was established, with funding by the Japanese government's Cool Japan Fund. The initiative invested one billion yen (about US$9.1 million at the time) in the project.

In addition to managing legal streaming via Daisuki, ACJ has co-produced anime and co-sponsored the Anisong World Matsuri event. ACJ also launched the Anime Now! anime information site in July.

Bandai Namco Holdings reported in the press release on Thursday that as of March 2016, ACJ had 233 million yen (about US$2,056,000 by today's conversion) in sales, and an operating deficit of 1.015 billion yen (US$8,958,000). Comparatively, as of March 2015, ACJ had 8 million yen (about US$70,600) in sales, and an operating deficit of 117 million yen (US$1,033,000).

Source: Nikkei via Reuters

Thanks to Mike Ferreira for the news tip.