Sharp Announces Plan to Acquire Toshiba’s PC Biz

June 6, 2018

Tokyo- Sharp Corp. said Tuesday that it will acquire Toshiba Corp.'s <6502> personal computer business for about 4 billion yen.

The acquisition procedures are expected to be completed on Oct. 1. Sharp hopes to nurture the PC operations into a new source of revenue by combining the two companies' technologies.

Toshiba will exclude the loss-making PC business from its consolidated earnings as part of its structural reforms.

The boards of the two Japanese companies approved the deal at their respective meetings on Tuesday morning.

Sharp is reconstructing its operations under its parent, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. of Taiwan. Toshiba, which is also in the process of turning around its businesses, has recently sold its prized flash memory unit to a consortium led by U.S. private equity firm Bain Capital.

Sharp will acquire an equity stake of over 80.1 pct in Toshiba Client Solutions Co., a fully owned PC unit of Toshiba.

Toshiba will keep the remaining 19.9 pct.

Sharp used to make PCs, including laptops, under the Mebius brand, but withdrew from the business in 2010. After becoming a Hon Hai unit in 2016, the company started to consider returning to the PC market.

Toshiba released the world's first laptop in 1985. Its PCs known under the brand name of Dynabook in Japan once enjoyed the largest share in the global PC market, but later suffered sales declines amid fierce price competition with products of Chinese and Taiwanese rivals. Jiji Press