Matsushita To Drop Matsushita Name

[Mulboyne]

Bloomberg: Matsushita to rename itself Panasonic
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., the world's largest consumer electronics maker, will rename itself Panasonic, broadcaster NHK reported today, dropping the founder's name for the first time in its 90-year history. The company, known for its Panasonic brand of electronics, was established by Konosuke Matsushita in 1918. Osaka-based Matsushita will also abolish the "National" brand name for domestically sold household electronics in October, NHK reported, without saying where it obtained the information.

[GuyJean]

.. Osaka-based Matsushita will also abolish the "National" brand name for domestically sold household electronics in October..

That always confused me when I first arrived on the island.. Now other things confuse me..

GJ

[American Oyaji]

That always confused me when I first arrived on the island.. Now other things confuse me..

GJ

LOL. Yeah. I surmised they were the same company because they used the exact same font for both Panasonic and National. We also had a National brand top load VCR in our storage area and I asked the chief and he explained it. I was

[Mulboyne]

Reuters: Panasonic said in talks to buy Sanyo Electric

Japanese electronics maker Panasonic is in talks with Goldman Sachs and two other major shareholders of Sanyo Electric to buy a controlling stake in its smaller rival, company and financial sources said on Saturday. Talks with Daiwa Securities SMBC, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking and Goldman are at a preliminary stage and the firms have not entered into price negotiations, the sources said...If a deal is reached to buy all their holdings, Panasonic, already the world's largest plasma TV maker, could become Japan's top electronics firm by sales. Panasonic and Sanyo combined are expected to post 11.22 trillion yen in revenue, according to their forecasts for the year ending March 2009, surpassing projected 10.9 trillion yen at Hitachi, the country's current sales leader.

[Mulboyne]

Yomiuri: Merger foretold a year ago in salaryman manga

The planned business tie-up between Panasonic Corp. and Sanyo Electric Co. was first dreamed up about a year ago, but not in the boardrooms of either company. Many people read about the alliance before it reached the newspapers in a long-running manga strip depicting the rise of fictional businessman Kosaku Shima through the ranks of a large corporation. "Senmu Shima Kosaku" (Managing Director Kosaku Shima) ran a storyline in which Hatsushiba Electric, a major electric firm based on Panasonic, acquired a stake in Goyo Electric, a competitor modeled on Sanyo, to form the conglomerate, Hatsushiba Goyo Holdings.

The writer and illustrator of the manga, Kenshi Hirokane, used to be a Panasonic employee. "I didn't think it would be good for Sanyo, a firm with world-class battery and other technologies, to be broken up with the input of foreign funds and other investment," Hirokane said. "So, about a year ago, I came up with the storyline of Hatsushiba coming to Goyo's aid." In the manga, Shima successfully integrates the firms and is promoted from managing director to president. This prompted a change in the strip's title to "Shacho Shima Kosaku" (President Kosaku Shima). The strip runs in the weekly comic magazine Morning, published by Kodansha Ltd. "Shima didn't lay people off and managed to keep the Goyo brand after the tie-up," Hirokane said. "In the alliance between Panasonic and Sanyo, I hope [the companies] move forward with integration while preserving jobs."

[Mulboyne]

China flexing its muscles:

FT: China puts curbs on Panasonic Sanyo deal

China is forcing Panasonic to sell off assets in Japan to secure approval for its acquisition of Sanyo Electric, the first time Chinese competition authorities have compelled disposals outside of the country in a monopoly review. The landmark ruling by China's commerce ministry clears the way for Panasonic to press ahead today with its long-delayed Y805bn ($9.4bn) tender offer to acquire Sanyo Electric, another Japanese company, and create a global battery power house. The ruling, based on Chinese anti-trust laws introduced in August, 2008, underlines the growing power of Beijing's competition authorities and the rising sway its huge market is giving it in global regulation. Competition law experts said that the Chinese demands went further than those of the European Union, which last month cleared the takeover subject to fewer divestments, and would make international companies take even greater notice of China in weighing up mergers and acquisitions.

Natalie Yeung, a competition lawyer in the China practice of Slaughter and May, described the Panasonic judgment as Mofcom's "most detailed and comprehensive to date under the new laws". The commerce ministry ruled that, without divestments, the combined new Sanyo and Panasonic company would have a 77 per cent share of the Chinese market in hybrid vehicle batteries, a key product in the rapidly expanding green energy sector. The ministry also demanded the sale of factories that produce other products after ruling that the combined company would have a 62 per cent local market share in lithium coin batteries and 46 per cent in ordinary nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH) batteries. China demanded that Panasonic sell its division that makes Ni-MH batteries for hybrid electric vehicles and reduce its stake in a Ni-MH battery joint venture with Toyota from 40 per cent to 19.5 per cent.

Despite the competition clearance, received almost a year after Sanyo originally agreed to the takeover, the deal still poses tricky questions for Panasonic. One is that Sanyo's stock trades at levels well above the Y131 a share at which Sanyo's controlling investors agreed to sell to Panasonic last December. Other holders are unlikely to tender shares that they can sell in the market for Y216. Traders say that Sanyo's shares are popular with retail investors because of the company's prospects in batteries and solar energy, although Goldman Sachs is a known seller of its remaining 13.3 per cent stake. The market price on Sanyo's shares may become an issue for Panasonic once it has taken control, because it will need to inject new capital into Sanyo to support its growth.