Shares in air conditioning Company Fujitsu General, have slumped after the business was put up for sale, but despite offers no deal was reached.
Insiders are claiming that Fujitsu who is under pressure from Chinese brands want’s too much money for the business whose shares fell 10% on Friday after it emerged that there had been no takers for a share of the Japanese business.
This is the same Company that launched one of the first plasma TVs into the AV market, owned the market for a short while, and then overpriced the value of their 42″ plasma TVs, only to have the business taken away from them by rivals including Sony and Samsung.
They then lost their mobile phone and notebook business to competitors because of poor marketing and the cost of manufacturing a Japanese made product.
The sale of Fujitsu Ltd.’s majority stake in its air-conditioner manufacturing business has stalled as the bidders believed to be Chinese linked Companies, have been unable to agree on a price.
One of the stumbling blocks has been the sudden rise in the price of the Fujitsu General share price, which surged 42% when news leaked about the deal earlier this year.
The lift in the share price saw the business valued at $2.6 billion and the stake at around $1.1 billion.
Fujitsu is now believed to be looking for other potential bidders with the Company believed to have engaged with several potential suitors including private equity firms Bain Capital and KKR & Co. and Swedish manufacturer Nibe Industrier.
Nibe has already stated that they are not interested in a deal.
Insiders have told ChannelNews that the business is under pressure from Chinese and other Asian brands who are able to operate more efficiently than Japanese brands such as Fujitsu and Mitsubishi.
“The deal is valuable to a Chinese brand if they can use the Fujitsu name” a former Fujitsu General Australia executive said.
“It is true that we are considering various ways to maximize value as an independent business but nothing has been decided at this time,” a representative for Fujitsu said, declining to comment on the details.
Bloomberg claims that Fujitsu, which in its heyday made everything from laptops and supercomputers to chips, mobile phones and home appliances, has hived off much of its consumer product line-up to focus on communications and information technology systems for businesses.
The company had been aiming for a quick sale of its entire stake in the air-conditioner maker as it sheds non-core operations.
