Sony issued a press release, which is based on stock prices at the NYSE on the close of Spotify's IPO launch three days ago. "The sum of the unrealized valuation gain (net) and the gain on the sale of shares (net) to be recorded for the first quarter of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019 would be approximately 105 billion yen in total." In plain English, Sony could sell all of its Spotify stock and make close to $1 billion from this IPO. It probably won't do that, but Sony Music Entertainment early sell-off of its shares on IPO day means around $177 million (19 billion yen) right from the outset, regardless of where prices go from here.

Sony is hedging its bets on Spotify for now, but the cash will help bolster the company's finances for future earnings reports -- not that it's even needed it in more recent times.