Panasonic to buy Sanyo in $9 billion deal

Top shareholders, including Goldman Sachs, had been haggling over the price with Panasonic Corp. since it expressed interest in Sanyo last month, but Friday revealed they'd settled on a tender offer price of 131 yen ($1.47) a share.

The deal would also allow Panasonic, which makes Viera TVs and Diga Blu-ray disc players, to take advantage of struggling Sanyo's green businesses in solar panels and rechargeable batteries.

Panasonic President Fumio Ohtsubo said that taking over Sanyo will provide an opportunity for his company to become more competitive to ride out the worsening global downturn.

"The alliance with Sanyo will provide an engine for growth for us," he said at a news conference in Osaka, central Japan, shown via satellite in Tokyo.

Sanyo President Seiichiro Sano told reporters that the deal "is opening a way to fight these tough times that come only once in a 100 years."

Sanyo, founded by a brother-in-law of Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita, is a popular brand but has struggled to keep pace with bigger rivals in Japan's competitive electronics sector.

Sanyo's July-September profit dwindled to about a third of what it was a year earlier to 4.4 billion yen ($49 million) as a stronger Japanese currency, rising raw material costs and declining gadget prices hurt earnings. Panasonic's quarterly profit slumped 16 percent to 55.5 billion yen ($624 million).

Goldman, Daiwa Securities SMBC and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. together own stocks and preferred shares equal to 4.3 billion common Sanyo shares or 70.5 percent of voting rights. Sanyo has about 6.1 billion outstanding shares in total.

In 2006, Goldman, Daiwa, and Sumitomo Mitsui rescued struggling Sanyo with a 300 billion yen bailout. At the tender price, their part of the deal is valued at more than 560 billion yen ($5.7 billion).