Panasonic Connect to sell projector business

Panasonic Connect – A unit of Japan’s Panasonic Holdings plans to exit its high-end projector business as it focuses its resources on digital supply chain systems, Nikkei has learned.

Panasonic Connect is one of the world’s biggest names in high-end, large-venue projectors and has supplied them for global events like the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The company has not disclosed the most recent annual sales for the projector businesses, but the media and entertainment segment, which includes projectors, reported 111 billion yen in sales for the year through March.

Panasonic Connect plans to exit its high-end projector business. Panasonic Connect will decide on a buyer for the business as early as June, with an estimated sale price of 80 billion yen ($510 million). The Japanese financial services group Orix is said to have shown interest as a possible buyer for the projector business, as has at least one international investment fund.

The sale will raise funds for expanding Panasonic Connect’s systems business, a priority area for growth centered on Blue Yonder, a U.S.-based developer of supply chain software.

Panasonic Holdings bought Blue Yonder in 2021 for over $7 billion. Proceeds from the projector business sale will go toward the acquisition of another supply chain software developer.

For Panasonic Holdings, unloading the projector business would mark the biggest divestment since the sale of Panasonic Automotive Systems to the U.S. private equity firm Apollo Global Management, announced last year.

Panasonic Holdings is advancing a three-pronged growth strategy of electric-vehicle batteries, heat pumps and supply chain management. It plans to invest nearly 600 billion yen in the EV battery business in the three years to fiscal 2024.

With uncertainty hanging over the battery segment as EV sales hit a speed bump, Panasonic Connect’s systems business could emerge as a swing factor in the group’s earnings growth.

According to Nikkei Asia