Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Fujifilm has put an end to both its two-year takeover battle with Xerox Holdings as well as its 57-year partnership with the US firm.
In January 2018, Fujifilm launched a US$6.1 billion bid to gain a majority stake in its erstwhile US partner, but the deal foundered under the opposition of activist shareholders Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason. Fujifilm persisted by launching a US$1 billion lawsuit against Xerox in June 2018.
In an announcement yesterday, Fujifilm put an end to all that. The lawsuit has been dropped and instead Fujifilm will buy out all of Xerox’s 25% stake in their joint venture firm, Fuji Xerox. In this US$2.3 billion deal, Fuji Xerox will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fujifilm.
In other words, Fujifilm and Xerox have made a clean break from one another and will now go their separate ways.
Shigetaka Komori, chairman and chief executive officer of Fujifilm, commented, “Full ownership of Fuji Xerox will facilitate faster decision making in a rapidly changing business environment. At the same time, Fuji Xerox will be able to further strengthen its business by capturing new original equipment manufacturer opportunities in the global market, leveraging our world-leading product development and manufacturing capabilities.”
Founded in 1962, the joint venture Fuji Xerox has been a leading document solutions company with revenues growing to above 1 trillion yen (about US$9.2 billion). It had also been regarded as one of the most successful joint ventures between a Japanese and a non-Japanese company.
