Hitachi : to sell overseas home appliance biz to Turkey's Arcelik - Nikkei
December 12, 2020 at 11:33 pm
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TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Hitachi Ltd plans to sell a 60% stake in its overseas home appliance business to Turkish consumer electronics maker Arcelik AS for about $300 million, and jointly operate the business, the Nikkei newspaper said on Sunday.
The Japanese industrial conglomerate aims to improve profit via the deal with the Turkish company - which has a business network in Europe and Africa - by expanding sales of its Hitachi-brand appliances, the paper said without citing sources.
The overseas business of Hitachi Global Life Solutions Inc, its home appliance unit, is worth about $500 million, according to Nikkei. The unit sells products in China and Southeast Asia, but 80% of its revenue comes from Japan, the paper said.
The deal comes as Hitachi steps up business divestments and is aimed at reinforcing the home appliance unit against fierce competition abroad from Chinese competitors, the paper said.
"The report is not based on our announcement," a Hitachi spokesman said.
"We are making various considerations to improve our corporate value, but nothing concrete has been decided."
(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Tom Hogue)
Hitachi specializes in manufacturing and marketing of electronic and industrial equipments. Net sales (including intragroup) break down by family of products and services as follows:
- social infrastructure and industrial systems (24.7%): elevators, escalators, industrial facilities, railway systems, power generation units, etc. The group also provides engineering and construction of nuclear, hydroelectric, and thermal power plants services;
- information and telecommunications products and services (20.1%): systems integration, cloud computing, software, servers, hard disks, PCs, ATMs, data communication base stations, payment terminals, etc.;
- materials and components (16.6%): semi-conductor materials, printed circuit cards, cables, copper and forged steel products, magnetic materials, organic and inorganic chemical products, etc.;
- construction equipment (10%) : hydraulic excavators, wheel loaders, mining equipment, etc.;
- automotive systems (9.4%): powertrain systems, control systems, etc.;
- electronic products (9.2%): fiber-optic components, screen tubes, testing and measurement equipment, medical equipment, equipment for manufacturing semiconductors, etc.;
- household appliances (4.7%): heating and air conditioning equipments, refrigerators, washing machines, etc.;
- other (5.3%): mainly transport, financial and logistical services.
Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: Japan (49.2%), Asia (21.3%), North America (12.7%), Europe (10.8%) and other (6%).