Who Would be a Viable Buyer for Toshiba Tec?

Seems that every new day brings a new set of issues for Toshiba Corporation, which is not to be confused with Toshiba Tec.

You might ask what does Toshiba Tec offer besides copiers?  After a short visit to their site I was surprised to see so much diversification of products.  Software, POS (Point of Sale) Systems, Printers (thermal, mobile and more), Self Checkout Kiosk, Displays, and Digital Signage.

So, who could benefit?

Almost two years ago, we posted up a survey for "Who Would be a Viable Buyer for Toshiba Tec?".  Seems anything with Toshiba nowadays seems to be a hot topic. In recent months we've had a flurry of activity with the voting.

Kyocera was the top vote getter with 23.9%, surprisingly "other" was second with 23.2%.  Rounding out the top five was Samsung, KonicaMinolta & Ricoh.

As I thought more about these players, I came to the conclusion that why would any of these companies buy Toshiba Tec.  They all have their own brands of copiers, Samsung sold the Imaging Division to HP. Oh! Wait a moment, would HP not be a viable buyer?  HP & Toshiba Tec do have many similarities in the products that they offer.  As far as copiers goes, HP could have that BTA dealer network they've wanted.  But, the word around town is that many of the Samsung dealers want to get out of Dodge and don't want to parlay with HP.  It's interesting to day the least.

Dark Horse

One dark horse that only accumulated 1.4% is Muratec America.  If you're not familiar with Muratec America they are owned by Murata Manufacturing in Japan.  Murata Manufacturing has a market cap of 30.7 billion dollars.  Toshiba Tec's market cap is 1.5 billion dollars.  Seems to me that if someone was going to buy Toshiba Tec, that Murata Manufacturing makes a lot of sense. 

However, in order for any of this to happen, Toshiba Corporate would have to be willing to part with their 52% share of Toshiba Tec stock.  There's been no talk of that, no reports of that and lastly no rumors either.

Times Are Tough

But, times are tough for Toshiba Corporation.  Many articles from the web have Toshiba Corp bleeding cash.  From someone who reads almost every article regarding Toshiba it seems like they are hedging their financial freedom on the sale of their valuable semiconductor unit.  An article from tonight states that the second round of bidding is under way for the semiconductor unit.  Bids are as high as $20 billion US.  What I could do with $20 Billion US!

The thought of $20 biilion US could cure a lot of the illness that Toshiba Corporation has developed in the last two years. But, there are issues here also.  Western Digital recently  filed for arbitration because they believe they have the authority to negotiate a sell-off (could tie it up in the courts).  Another sticking point is that the Japanese Government does not want to lose another Tec company to a foreign firm (Foxconn bought Sharp).

Thus, there seems to be no quick fix for Toshiba Corporation.  Toshiba Tec on the other hand is doing quite well.  Just not sure how much more of a beating can the brand take.

Wow, I started out just wanting to keep everyone updated on our voting by Print 4Pay Hotel members.  Enough of my thoughts, take a trip here and see how the voting is panning out.  You may even want to cast your own vote also.

-=Good Selling=-