Feb 3 2011
Canon has announced that it has planned to acquire several medical and robotic firms in another five years by spending around 1 trillion yen.
Till 2015, the company will focus on establishing European and US bases. Another base for Research and Development will be opened in Japan. The base in the US will concentrate on the medical segment and the one in Europe will focus on building new solutions in high-speed printing field.
Fujio Mitarai, Chairman of Canon, has mentioned that the present value of the yen offers a significant advantage for them in merging and acquiring global firms. He added that they have already started choosing firms for feasible mergers.
By these new business initiatives, Canon is looking forward to improve the combined sales of more than 5 trillion yen as well as 500 billion yen of total profit by 2015. The medical businesses to be acquired by the company include medical devices, genetic engineering, health-care and industrial robots. It was reported that certain acquirements would require several hundred billions of yen investment.
Mitarai has stated that the company has allocated 900 billion yen for these initiatives and methods like equity swaps will also be adopted while buying local companies. The company is also focusing on developing three-dimensional enabled products that do not need special goggles and such technology will be applied to its digital cameras as well.
Source: http://www.canon.com