You might recall Olympus’ exit from the industry a while back.
It was quite the saga. Tons of rumors flying about and an almost equal number of denials until reality became too hard to ignore and Olympus, a storied brand in the industry by any stretch, announced that a consortium known as Japan Industrial Partners or JIP would be purchasing it.
Now JIP has come for Toshiba, the vaunted consumer electronics brand, among other products. It might not be immediately apparent why JIP would want to add Toshiba to its growing phalanx of brands but, upon closer inspection, and, particularly with regard to the aforementioned Olympus’ product portfolio, it actually makes a lot of sense.
All in all, JIP walked away with Toshiba for $USD 14 billion, a far cry from the company’s heyday when it was competing with the likes of Sony. The Stack notes that, among other ventures, Toshiba’s deep foray into nuclear energy may have hurt it in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. This, coupled with declining brand cachet and increased competitive pressures in core markets, may have ultimately contributed to Toshiba’s need to seek a strategic partnership like that offered by JIP.
“JIP has recognized that despite the fact that there are many major corporations each of which has accumulated sufficient management resources such as a customer base, technology, products and services, and human resources, but which is unable to demonstrate its latent potential because of reasons, such as failure to steadily implement individual measures and operations not running smoothly.”
Any thoughts you might have on JIP’s purchase of Toshiba are welcome in the comments below.
Check out some other photography news at this link right here.
