TOKYO: Panasonic Corp will sell its three main chip plants in Japan to Israel’s TowerJazz, people with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday, as the electronics giant wraps up a multi-billion-dollar restructuring drive, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
The sale is expected to happen before Panasonic closes its books on the current financial year next March, the sources said, without giving an anticipated value for the deal.
The three aging plants, which are fully depreciated, had a combined book value of 42.2 billion yen ($416m) as of March 31.
Panasonic said nothing had been decided. TowerJazz declined to comment.
Under President Kazuhiro Tsuga, Panasonic has been paring back unprofitable operations, including TVs and smartphones, after it lost a combined $15bn in the two years to March this year. Semiconductors are the last major area where the company is retrenching.
TowerJazz, a foundry that makes chips on a contract basis for other firms, has a semiconductor plant in western Japan purchased from a Japan unit of Micron Technology Inc, in addition to factories in Israel and the United States.
Panasonic aims to give TowerJazz control of three plants and is also in talks with another unidentified company to sell the remaining five plants in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the sources said.