Tokyo – Onkyo and TEAC announced a strategic
alliance in which they will acquire shares of each other’s stock and explore
ways to share manufacturing facilities, logistic centers and research and
development efforts.
The announcement
follows Gibson Guitar’s announcement that it will purchase a 51 percent stake in Onkyo USA and become
the second largest shareholder of Onkyo Corp. in Japan. Onkyo USA is the parent company’s exclusive
distributor for North America and a distributor for Central and South America. Onkyo will also invest in Gibson.
TEAC president
Yuji Hanabusa said the Onkyo-TEAC alliance “will make both companies more
competitive in an ever changing market.” Onkyo president Munenori Otsuki said
the deal will enable both companies to “leverage each other’s considerable
strengths to provide innovative life changing products to its customers.”
Nikkei reported
that Onkyo will purchase a 10 percent interest in Teac for about 1 billion yen
on Feb. 6, and TEAC will buy about 700 million yen worth of new shares in Onkyo
to obtain a stake of about 10 percent.
TEAC, founded in
1953, markets the TEAC, TASCAM and Esoteric brands.
