Panasonic Corp. is considering buying Sanyo Electric Co. by acquiring some of the preferred Sanyo shares that three major creditor institutions, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. of the United States, now hold, Kyodo News Agency reported on Saturday.
Panasonic is expected to strike a basic agreement on the plan with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. and Daiwa Securities SMBC Co. as well as Goldman Sachs, possibly by the year's end, said Kyodo, quoting sources close to the acquisition.
Panasonic would secure a dominant global market share in the lithium-ion battery business and would obtain the photovoltaic cell business by acquiring Sanyo, it said.
The deal, if realized, would mark the first full-scale realignment of the Japanese electronics industry involving major companies.
In 2006, struggling electronics maker Sanyo issued preferred shares worth a total of 300 billion yen to the three financial institutions. If converted into common shares, the stock will represent about 70 percent of Sanyo's outstanding issues in terms of voting rights.
Buying the 70 percent share would cost Panasonic about 620 billion yen if calculated using the current Sanyo share price. Sanyo closed at 145 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Friday, down 1yen from the previous day.
Combined group sales of Panasonic and Sanyo Electric totaled about 11.22 trillion yen in fiscal 2007, surpassing the 10.9 trillion yen industry leader Hitachi Ltd. logged the same fiscal year.
Panasonic changed its corporate name to the current one from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. in October. The group has been looking for ways to promote merger and acquisition activities in abid to attain consolidated sales of 10 trillion yen in the 2009 business year.
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article