Japanese electronics and entertainment giant Sony Corp said yesterday it was selling its chemical products division to the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) as part of a huge overhaul of its business.
Sony, which has been struggling with giant losses and fierce competition, did not say how much the bank would pay for the unit, which makes a variety of products, including films used in LCD panels.
A report in the Nikkei business daily yesterday said the bank may pay Sony as much as ¥40 billion (US$481 million).
Sony, which said it was aiming to finalize the deal by May and complete the sale in the first quarter of next year, added that the chemicals arm no longer fit into its wider restructuring plan.
“As a result of such realignment effort, [Sony] believes that this transaction would be the optimum solution for Sony, DBJ and the chemical products businesses themselves,” it said in a statement.
Sony added that the bank’s “domestic and international networks and other diverse business resources will enable the chemical products businesses to achieve further growth and development in the future.”
The unit, which has about 3,000 employees and operations in Japan, the US, Europe and China, reported sales of ¥111 billion for the year to March last year.
The sale is the latest move by Sony aimed at restructuring its business. At the end of last year, it extricated itself from a joint LCD making venture with Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co after about seven years, hoping for greater flexibility in sourcing components.
Sony posted total annual sales of about US$87 billion over the same period.
Reports yesterday said Sony was shaking up its US entertainment business ahead of chief executive Howard Stringer’s departure, while his 51-year-old protege Kazuo Hirai would focus on trying to bring its core Japanese electronics division back to profitability.
The chemical business sale is “not a negative in that the company is making progress for its business restructure, but its shares may not benefit much unless it tackles its loss-making TV business,” a strategist at a Japanese brokerage said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last