Matsushita, Hitachi in talks on major panel deals: source
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Matsushita Electric Industrial Co   and Hitachi Ltd  are discussing multi-billion  dollar deals on flat panels that could reshape an industry hit  by fierce competition, a source familiar with the matter said.
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Nissan Motor Co (7201.T) and Chrysler LLC  are in preliminary discussions to supply cars, trucks and  engines to each other, a source close to the talks said on  Friday.
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Shares of JVC &lt;6792.T&gt; dived to a five-year low on news that Kenwood Corp. &lt;6765.T&gt; has resumed talks with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. &lt;6752.T&gt; to buy a stake in JVC, after a deal with private equity firm Texas Pacific Group fell through.
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The Tokyo Stock Exchange  and the  Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME)  will begin talks on a  possible business tie-up, the Nikkei business daily reported in  its evening edition on Thursday.
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Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd.  (6752.T) and Hitachi Ltd. (6501.T) are joining forces to battle  fierce competition in the flat screen industry by adding each  others&#39; plasma display panels to their product line-up.
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Hitachi is considering a shake-up of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST), the hard-disk drive maker that it acquired from IBM in 2003.The Tokyo company said in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange that it is considering &quot;all options&quot; regarding the subsidiary.The statement was issued in response to a report in the Friday morning edition of The Nikkei newspaper that said Hitachi is in talks with U.S. investment fund Silver Lake over the sale of just under half the company. The Nikkei said that the two parties are trying to come up with a deal by January however agreement remains some way off because there are disagreements on price.Hitachi declined to comment beyond its statement.Despite coming up with several market-leading drives, such as the&#160;first terabyte hard-disk drive&#160;at the beginning of this year, the company hasn&#39;t yet been able to make a profit under Hitachi&#39;s ownership. It is the third-largest manufacturer of hard-disk drives behind Seagate and Western Digital.Hard-disk drive makers have been enjoying better business conditions in the market in the second half of 2007. Early in the year prices fell about 20 percent per quarter but those sharp price declines have now steadied and prices dropped just 5 percent in the fourth quarter, according to a recent report from iSuppli.The research agency said worldwide shipments of drives hit 132 million units in the third quarter, a 15 percent jump from the 115 million shipped in the second quarter. It predicted the seasonably strong fourth quarter will see a further 11 percent jump in shipments from the previous quarter.
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Shares in LG.Philips LCD Co Ltd  surged on Friday on market talk Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial was buying a stake in the South Korean flat screen maker, but both firms poured cold water on the talk.
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Shares of electronics maker Kenwood Corp. &lt;6765.T&gt; jumped as much as 10 percent on Monday on news it has resumed talks with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. &lt;6752.T&gt; to buy a stake in JVC &lt;6792.T&gt; after a deal with private equity firm Texas Pacific...
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Isuzu Motors Ltd. and NTT Communications Corp. are expected to announce business deals with Russian firms when Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov visits Japan next week, a newspaper said Thursday.
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Japan's Mitsui & Co. Ltd. (8031.T) and  Mitsubishi Corp. (8058.T) are seeking cash from Russia's state  gas monopoly Gazprom  in exchange for part of their  stakes in the $22 billion Sakhalin-2 project, sources close to  the talks said on Monday.
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Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd.  (6752.T) said on Wednesday it will launch four new models of  high-definition plasma TVs, including the world's largest with  a 103-inch panel, challenging LCD TVs' lead in offering higher  resolution images.
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Three of Japan&#39;s largest electronics companies, Hitachi Ltd., Toshiba Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., have reached a basic agreement to create a joint venture to manufacture and sell LCD
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By Kyodo News International, Tokyo  Feb. 9--TOKYO -- Standard & Poor's Ratings Service said Friday it has  raised its ratings for Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Mitsubishi Electric  Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd. by one notch each due to improving profitability and  cash flows.
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Hitachi, Canon and Panasonic have agreed to a wide-ranging collaboration that will see the three companies share the cost, burden and benefits of development and production of flat-panel displays.The move comes hot on the heels of a tie-up announced last week between Toshiba and Sharp and continues a major realignment in the fast-moving industry.Under the terms of the initial agreement Canon and Panasonic will each buy a 24.9 percent stake in Hitachi Displays, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi that already makes small and medium size LCD (liquid crystal display) panels. The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to be completed before March 31, 2008.Hitachi said it hopes to accelerate the development of cutting-edge LCD technology through the alliance, which was announced on Tuesday. Competition in the flat-panel display industry is fierce and there is constant pressure on manufacturers to invest in new and efficient production technology to keep prices low and their screens technologically competitive. However a new LCD plant can easily cost US$1 billion [b] or more so companies are increasingly working together to share the costs.Meanwhile Canon said it hopes to shorten development time and gain a stable supply of LCD panels for its range of digital single-lens reflex cameras. It also hopes to develop new types of displays that can be used in its information management products.Panasonic, which has invested heavily in PDP (plasma display panel) technology for large-size flat-panel TVs and displays, will invest in a new production line at IPS Alpha Technology. The company is a joint-venture in which Canon and Toshiba also hold stakes although Toshiba is understood to be in talks concerning its exit from the venture. The new production line will help ensure a stable supply of medium-size LCD panels for Panasonic&#39;s TV up to about 40-inches in screen size, above which it uses PDPs.The wide-ranging collaboration and cooperation announced Tuesday is the first step of a series of planned moves that will eventually have Canon take control of Hitachi Displays and Panasonic take control of IPS Alpha Technology, the three companies said.In addition to the LCD alliance, Canon and Hitachi plan to work together on development of OLED (organic light emitting diode) displays. OLED is a fundamentally different technology from LCD and PDP and has been under development by many display makers for several years. It&#39;s viewed by some as a potential replacement for LCD technology because it provides a brighter and richer picture but a lot of work remains before it can be produced in sufficient volume and at a low enough price to compete with LCD.The world&#39;s first commercial OLED TV recently went on sale in Japan. Sony&#39;s XEL-1 has an 11-inch screen and is just 3-millimeters thick -- another advantage of OLED because a backlight unit isn&#39;t required -- but comes with an equally impressive &#165;200,000 (US$1,750) price tag.Last week Toshiba and Sharp announced plans to work together in the flat-panel display business. Toshiba will buy from Sharp screens for its 32-inch and larger TV sets while Sharp will buy from Toshiba the chips used in its TVs. The cooperation will begin from April next year and will slowly build towards 2010 when two goals are expected to be reached: Sharp will supply Toshiba with 40 percent of its LCD modules and Toshiba will sell to Sharp 50 percent of the chips it needs, they said.Sony and Samsung Electronics have been cooperating in LCD panel production for sometime and jointly own S-LCD, a manufacturer of cutting-edge LCD panels based in South Korea.&#160;
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TOKYO - Three of Japan's largest electronics companies, Hitachi Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. and Toshiba Corp., will announce later Tuesday plans to jointly manufacture LCD (liquid crystal display) panels.
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Hitachi, Toshiba and Matsushita have reached a basic agreement to jointly establish a company they are currently calling the âJV,â to manufacture and sell LCD panels for flat-panel TVs, with operations to commence in January.
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Investment banks Morgan Stanley  and Lehman Brothers  are among the bidders for a stake in Japanese house builder Daito Trust Construction Co , sources familiar with the deal said, in what could stack up to be one of the biggest buyouts ever in Japan.