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Panasonic Buys US Refrigeration Company Hussmann

Dec. 21, 2015
Japanese tech giant will purchase Hussmann for $1.54 billion in an effort to expand its presence in the freezer display case market in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, among other countries.

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

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