Panasonic has announced that it will sell off a majority stake of its projector business in a new joint venture with Orix, a Japanese investment firm with interests across a variety of business sectors and worldwide regions.

Panasonic Orix logos
Panasonic will relinquish an 80% majority stake in its projector and panel display business unit in a new joint venture with Orix, a Japanese venture capital firm.

As we previously reported, news of a possible sale of the projector unit first broke in late May and cited Orix as a leading contender for the sale. The announcement made on July 31 clarifies that the two firms will create a new company starting April 1, 2025 from Panasonic Connect's existing Media Entertainment Business Division (MEBD) in which Orix will hold an 80% stake and Panasonic a 20% stake. The Media unit currently sells projectors and panel displays.

Panasonic says the new company will continue on the same path, developing new products in those key areas while benefitting from capital investment and manufacturing expertise brought to bear by Orix at a time when continued success and growth in the display industry demands more advanced hardware and software-related solutions. The new company, and its products, will continue to use the Panasonic brand as it focuses on maintaining its strong position in the high-brightness projector segment at 10,000-lumens and above.

panasonic connect orix flowchart
The new firm will keep some of Panasonic's existing manufacturing and spin off some international sales operations into subsidiaries. New products and the new company will for now retain the Panasonic name.

Panasonic says the worldwide sales organizations operated by Panasonic Connect's MEBD unit in North America, China, Austrailia, Singapore, and other regions will be spun off into subsidiaries of the new company. Domestic sales in Japan will continue under the aegis of Panasonic Connect's Gemba Solutions Company.

According to the Orix website, the firm operates 10 business segments, three tied generally to investments in geographic regions (USA, Europe, Asia/Austrailia) and seven targeted business sectors including Corporate Financial Services, Real Estate, Private Equity Investments, Environment & Energy, Insurance, Banking & Credit, and Aircraft & Ships. Visual display technology appears to be a completely new area for the company. Orix was founed in 1964 is said to have current shareholder value of about $28 billion U.S.

As noted in our earlier report, Panasonic Connect's parent company Panasonic Holdings was said to be anxious to focus on the Connect unit's growth in supply-chain software and other B2B logistics solutions that form the core of its business; it can be argued that the projector/display segment has been an odd fit following some key acquisitions and the name change to Panasonic Connect a couple of years ago. For now, Panasonic seems content to maintain a minority interest in the commercial projector business it launched in 1975 with its first CRT-based projector.

 
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henry Posted Aug 2, 2024 12:55 PM PST
Expect shuffling firing etc of personel to save money.. followed by breaking apart of departments and selling of resources etc.. after a couple years of stagnation in research and development. Venture firms only think about quick money.. panasonic will be lucky if this group is different.
Rob Sabin, Editor Posted Aug 4, 2024 6:51 AM PST
@Henry, I appreciate the observation based on typical history, though I don't think this qualifies as the usual situation of a manufacturing company looking to cash in on a sale and a VC firm looking to flip the property or sell it off in pieces. Panasonic is retaining for now a 20% stake and I conjecture may be making a slow departure from this business as a long-term strategic move. Panasonic's strong position in large venue projection, and the quality/value proposition their products bring (which I have always seen as very high relative to their chief competition), and Orix's involvement in a variety of industries where they have held companies over the longer term, suggest they have made an investment in a valuable brand in an ongoing business that is perhaps big enough for them in the short and longer term, but maybe won't be for Panny in the distant future. Projection isn't going away, but it will give up ground to panels and LED walls over time, and high-output/large venue is one of the more protected segments because of things like large-scale projection mapping and the more cost effective logistics of putting up big images on a temporary basis. I think the biggest concerns when these types of acquisitions happen is whether the new owner starts cutting corners and messing with the secret sauce because they don't understand the business and what has made it successful. Hopefully, Panasonic's ongoing involvement with a minority stake will prevent that. But I guess only time will tell.

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