TOKYO — Japanese electronics giant Panasonic announced Monday that it would buy Hussmann, a U.S.-based food refrigeration systems company, for $1.54 billion as part of its drive to expand in the American food retail sector.
Panasonic said in a statement that the purchase would help it to increase its business for freezer display cases in the United States — the world’s biggest market for the product — as well as to areas near the giant economy and markets such as Australia and New Zealand.
Calling the deal a “strategic acquisition,” Osaka-based Panasonic said the purchase would combine the Hussmann’s excellence in customer service and maintenance with Panasonic technology.
“Panasonic will use this synergy to drive growth and further innovation on a global basis,” the company said in a release.
The purchase will be completed in April 2016, making the U.S. firm a wholly-owned subsidiary, Panasonic said. The Hussmann brand and the current management will remain.
Major Japanese companies have been rushing to buy foreign firms as a way to secure future growth. The Japanese domestic market has faced chronically weak consumption, and the nation’s shrinking population has posed a threat to Japan’s growth prospects.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2015
