Does foreign ownership determines being an owner of a company?

I heard many large multinational conglomerates like Samsung to have a large number of foreign investors investing in the company. Sony is 52% owned by foreign investors, is that mean sony is owned by foreigner and not Japanese?

This post has been edited by NicoRobinz: Apr 12 2011, 12:04 AM

Not foreigner, but foreigners. Publicly traded multinationals tend to be like that.

PS: For the past 6 years, Sony has been led by Howard Stringer, who came from the American side of their business.

how is that considered a japanese company if Sony is owned by foreigner?

and does foreign ownership good or bad to a company?

This post has been edited by NicoRobinz: Apr 12 2011, 12:36 PM

foreigners. If you list down the nationality of all the shareholders (people and corporations), the biggest group is still the Japanese.

This post has been edited by dkk: Apr 12 2011, 10:17 PM

but aren't the foreigners have bigger share than Japanese? It means that foreigners have the power to control Sony over Japanese, no? Is that a good thing or bad thing to have such a large amount of shares owned by foreigners?

This post has been edited by NicoRobinz: Apr 12 2011, 10:33 PM

It probably arose mainly as a result of listing on the LSE and NYSE. The non-Japanese are not united as a single group. Nor for that matter is the Japanese. There is a reason these corporations are called multinationals.

Sony is still a Japanese company, but with plenty of assets outside of Japan. eg: Sony Pictures would never have happened if they didn't allow Hollywood people to come in to be their "partners" (thus ensuring good prices for licensing movies)

Obviously when a company gets larger and larger, it starts losing it's original identity and opting a suit-all (dull) Multinational look.

But it's Board Of Directors is still 70% Japanese, so in essence it is still Japanese ... not that it matters if they don't agree with each other

Didn't Sony Pictures used to be Columbia Pictures, an American film company dating back to when movies had no sound.