EXCLUSIVE: Fujitsu Sack 200 In OZ, Staff Now They Move To Offload PC Business

Struggling Japanese Company Fujitsu who have laid off more than 200 staff this year in Australia, is in talks with Lenovo in an effort to sell their struggling PC business.

In Australia Fujitsu who are struggling to hold onto several large service accounts, have struggled to sell PC’s and at one stage they were forced to supply more than 5,000 Hewlett Packard PC’s to a major banking client.

Last night the Company confirmed that they are in talks to sell its personal-computer arm to Lenovo who already own the NEC PC brand in Japan.

In Australia Fujitsu under the management of Mike Foster a former Telstra executive, has sacked more than 200 staff during the past 12 months with several staff lodging complaints with Work Cover over the work ethics at the Company and the way in which they were terminated.

One senior executive who had worked at the Company for several years and was suddenly terminated while being treated for a medical condition, recently, ended up on life support after suffering a heart attack. His colleagues blame work conditions at the Company as contributing factor.

ChannelNews understands that the Company has been accused of “Exploiting” employees and that investigations are ongoing.

We have also been told that complaints have been lodged by several customers of Fujitsu including Qantas an account that Fujitsu is tipped to lose, Serco and WA Health.

In the latest move the Japanese Company is looking to offload assets in an effort to shore up their balance sheet.

A person familiar with the discussions said the Lenovo-Fujitsu deal could be structured similarly to the NEC deal. Lenovo would buy the majority of Fujitsu’s PC subsidiary, which was spun off from the Fujitsu parent in February, and Lenovo would lead the business with Fujitsu retaining a minority stake, this person said.

In a statement following Japanese reports about the deal, Fujitsu said: “We are considering various options for the PC unit, including a possible deal with Lenovo.”

Lenovo accounted for 21.1% of global PC shipments in the second quarter, followed by HP Inc.’s 20.7%, according to IDC, while Fujitsu trailed far behind in ninth place with a share of 1.1%.

Lenovo already acquired the PC business of another former Japanese giant, NEC, in 2011, and it took over the ThinkPad PC business from International Business Machines Corp. in 2005.
Fujitsu Chief Executive Tatsuya Tanaka, is currently facing pressure from investors to improve profitability and slim down its business, has tried to focus on higher-margin service businesses such as organizing banks’ computer systems or providing data to help farmers grow crops more efficiently.

“The deal is a win-win,” said Atsushi Osanai, a former Sony employee who is now a visiting fellow at Harvard University. “Fujitsu would be able to keep the brand name while Lenovo could expand its presence in the enterprise business where the Japanese company is strong.”

Investors welcomed the Lenovo deal as a sign that Fujitsu was taking steps toward “selection and concentration,” said Yoshinori Ogawa, a strategist at Okasan Securities.

Fujitsu already tried earlier this year to unload the PC business in a proposed three-way merger with Toshiba’s Dynabook unit and Vaio Corp., the former Sony PC arm that is now owned by a private-equity fund. The plan fell apart because none of the three was ready to take leadership.

Mike Foster the CEO of Fujitsu Australia has not returned our calls.