Panasonic bought Sanyo for ¥ 404 billion

    A year ago, the Japanese giant Panasonic showed interest in buying Sanyo, and during the year bought up shares on the free market and negotiated with major investors. And yesterday, the takeover process was a success, according to Reuters : Panasonic acquired a 50.19% stake in the competitor. The purchase cost 403.8 billion yen (about $ 4.6 billion).

    Already in January, Sanyo (the world's largest manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries, the owner of many patents and know-how) will simply turn into a subsidiary of Panasonic, and in the battery market will become one less independent company. In addition to batteries, Sanyo also produces solar panels, various electronics, including digital cameras and camcorders, audio and video equipment, telecommunications devices.

    Lithium-ion batteries are a very promising market, especially with the growing popularity of lithium-ion cars (only Audi orders from Sanyo batteries for 15-25 thousand such cars a year), although almost all old hybrids like Toyota Prius work on obsolete NiMH batteries.

    According to Panasonic analysts, by 2018, the Li-Ion battery market will expand five-fold compared to the current year.

    According to RIANPanasonic and Sanyo have a historically close relationship: both main offices are located in Osaka, one kilometer from each other; Sanyo's founder was the younger brother of Konosuke Matsushita's wife, who founded Panasonic (former company name: Matsushita Electric). The factory that started the Sanyo story was ceded to Matsushita. However, so far the two companies have never been connected by common capital.

    As a result of their merger, the largest monster is formed with an annual turnover of about ¥ 8660 billion ($ 98 billion). Among Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers, only Hitachi has comparable performance.

    One of the main investors in Sanyo, acting as a stock seller, was the American financial corporation Goldman Sachs. It is unlikely that the Americans are happy with this deal, because the crisis caused Sanyo to sell cheaper than experts estimated a year ago, when Panasonic just started to plan its plan. However, in 2009, Sanyo was doing pretty poorly, the company was operating at a loss (- ¥ 37 billion over three quarters) and even had to cut staff.

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