Snoopy joining Sony? Music unit buying stake in Peanuts

TOKYO (AP) — Snoopy may be joining Sony.

Japanese electronics maker Sony Corp.’s music unit said Monday that it is buying a stake in Peanuts Holdings, the company behind Snoopy and Charlie Brown.

Sony Music Entertainment signed a deal with DHX Media, based in Nova Scotia, Canada, to acquire 49 percent of the 80 percent stake DHX holds in Peanuts.

Under the deal, Sony Music will own 39 percent and DHX 41 percent. The family members of Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, will continue to own 20 percent of Peanuts. The parties hope to complete the acquisition on or about June 30, according to Tokyo-based Sony.

DHX is a leading children’s content and brand company, known for Strawberry Shortcake as well as producing children’s shows, in addition to Peanuts.

Sony said it sees Peanuts as “world-class,” and hopes to use its character business expertise to strengthen the brand and push the business to grow.

Sony has a range of characters under its wings, including those from its PlayStation video games. Its film division makes the Spider-man movie series.

Snoopy and other Peanuts characters are extremely popular in Japan, featured in a variety of everyday goods from Tshirts to plastic chopsticks.

The comic series was translated into Japanese decades ago, becoming an instant hit.

Peanuts began as a comic, first published in American newspapers in 1950. It’s now carried in 2,200 newspapers around the world in 21 languages. In 2020, it will celebrate its 70th anniversary. Schultz, who used to say that all he wanted to do was to “draw funny pictures,” died in 2000.

The popularity of Peanuts stems partly from its ability to connect with a wide audience through its poetic portrayal of a children’s world, exploring with sensitivity and humor themes such as failure, heartbreak and pursuit of music. WILLEMSTAD, Curacao (AP) — A court on the Dutch island of Curacao has authorized the local subsidiary of U.S. oil giant ConocoPhillips to seize $636 million worth of assets held on the island by Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA.

The move comes as Houston-based Conoco seeks to recover $2 billion in a decade-old dispute over the expropriation of its Venezuelan oil projects by the OPEC nation’s socialist government, which is struggling with an economic crunch that has caused widespread shortages of food and medicine.

Curacao Economy Minister Steve Martina said at a news conference Sunday that Conoco already had taken control of some oil products at the Isla Curazao refinery, though he did not specify how much.

The Curacao court’s ruling of May 4 is a blow to Venezuela, which uses refineries on Curacao and elsewhere in the Netherlands Antilles to store a significant portion of the oil it exports to its three main foreign markets — China, the U.S. and India.

According to the ruling reviewed Sunday by The Associated Press, the company can seize all oil products stored at the Isla Curazao and the Di Korsou refineries on Curacao. The court also said Conoco can take over any crude oil shipments en route from Venezuela to the island that are within 19 kilometers (12 miles) of the Curacao coast.

Venezuela holds the world’s largest underground oil reserves but production has declined under nearly two decades of socialist leadership, casting the once-wealthy nation deep into political and economic crisis.

An arbitration panel under the International Chamber of Commerce in late April found that Venezuela under the leadership of then-President Hugo Chavez in 2007 illegally expropriated joint venture operations with ConocoPhillips.

The firm turned to a local court to collect the award, but the petition spelling out its demands has not been made public. The $2 billion award represents the equivalent of more than 20 percent of the cash-strapped Venezuela’s foreign currency reserves.