Panasonic Prepping to Take Ownership of Sanyo

Panasonic plans to take full control of Sanyo by next March.

When one major electronics company buys another major electronics company, things tend to take a while. We first got wind of this Panasonic buyout of Sanyo last December and things have been generally quiet until today.

Panasonic has now raised its ownership of Sanyo from 50 percent to 80 percent, edging ever closer to 100 percent ownership. Panasonic Corp. is also buying out Panasonic Electric and has raised its stake from 51 percent to 84 percent.

All these acquisitions don't come cheap – the folks at Panasonic shelled out more than $9.8 billion to make it happen. There's a lot on the line though, including Sharp's lithium-ion battery technology that Panasonic is banking on to make the deal worth their while.

Source: TWICE