Matsu****a Electric Rises to 3-Year High on Job Cuts (Update1)
July 4 (Bloomberg) -- Shares of Matsu****a Electric Industrial Co. rose to their highest in three years after the world's biggest consumer electronics maker said it will offer some workers at its chip unit payments to quit to cut costs.
Matsu****a, the biggest plasma TV seller in Japan, climbed 0.8 percent to 1,695 yen as of 11 a.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, headed for its highest close since June 2002. It rose as much as 1.2 percent earlier today.
Shares of the Osaka-based maker of Panasonic-brand electronics maker have gained 4.2 percent this year, outpacing its rivals in the Topix Electric Appliances Index, which has risen 1.3 percent. The shares may extend gains as Matsu****a boosts share in the U.S. plasma TV market, and nears its target of 5 percent operating margin by March 2007 by cutting costs, analysts such as Nomura Securities Co.'s Eiichi Katayama said.
``It's possible the shares will rise to 2,000 yen,'' said Katayama, who has a ``buy'' rating on the stock. ``There's a good chance Matsu****a will beat its earnings forecasts.''
Of the 21 analysts tracked by Bloomberg data, only one analyst has a ``sell'' rating on Matsu****a.
Matsu****a yesterday said it will take requests until mid- July from some of its 15,000 semiconductor division employees who are willing to quit for payments. The Nihon Keizai newspaper said Matsu****a expects to cut about 1,000 jobs at the unit, a number that company spokesman Akira Kadota called ``speculative.''
Matsu****a, which had 334,752 workers at the end of March, gets about 26 million yen ($233,000) of sales per employee. Sony Corp., its next biggest rival with about half the number of workers, gets 47.3 million yen in sales per employee, according to Bloomberg data.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Daisuke Takato in Tokyo at dtakato@bloomberg.net
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