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UPDATED: I don’t know what this could mean for the digital camera business future. But Panasonic just announced a new joint venture with TowerJazz (press text as pdf here). The key info here is that Panasonic sold 51% of three semiconductor manufacturing facilities to TowerJazz which now owns 51% of the new created joint venture company. Panasonic still keeps the 49%.
The transferred plants are from Hokuriku:
More info: Image-Sensor-World, Bloomberg.
48 Responses
Not “Selling 51% of its Imaging Sensor Business”!!!
Just that TowerJazz will own 51% of a NEW Joint Venture that manufactur silicon wafer.
When you transfer your assets to a new company and let another party control 51% of it, what else do you call it other than a sale ?
A joint venture, because you aren’t giving away your assets. Presumably the other company is contributing something more that warrants them having control of the joint venture.
tax evasion 😉
HAHA
This is the beginning of the end of Tiny Four thirds
Next Olympus, who barely make any of their components or lenses themselves, will sell their joke of a camera business to Toys R Us, lol
stick to making toasters Panacrapic haha!
I’m genuinely curious, why do you waste everyone’s (including yours and now my) time commenting on a system that you apparently despise? What do you shoot with? Wouldn’t your time be better spent elsewhere praising your amazing system? I know this is probably futile, but I hope there’s an adult somewhere near your keyboard.
It’s called “loneliness”.. Poor sad guy.
get a haircut…
It hurts, uh? 😉 it’s called “truth”.
This is the type of person whose greatest contribution to society will be when he dies and returns all those minerals for use in a more worthwhile organism
I laughed at your comment because you’re a hater.
But I’m sure there will be more exciting posts that the m43 fanboys will post to disbute your post!
Before they finally die, Olympus should move their headquarters to New Orleans. That way they can enjoy a nice Jazz Funeral with music, food and drinks. It would be a real party, maybe we could turn into one of our weekend festivals. Ofcourse, only Olympus cameras would be allowed, to show reverence for the departed.
meanwhile in other news Nikon has been recently running adverts on TV that are least 2 years old, desperate times eh?
Tanslation: “I need attention! Any kind of attention!” So attention-druggy: there you go. Just send another trolling statement and some over here will be happy to give you yoru attentionshot.
Yeah shouldn’t you be taking photos or video with you preferred system?
Kind of like a Yankee fan kicking a Mets fan after the Yankee’s win the world series. It’s someone who gets more joy out of hating then anything else.
I have 2 ff cameras and I love M43rds!
A pity that mirrorless cameras are in the “squeezed middle” between cameraphones and DSLRs. I have a GH3 for recording high quality video, but appreciate that’s only a niche use. I use my iPhone 5 for just about everything else…
Struggling to see an information relating to the sale of the imaging business or any other IP.
This, to my eyes at least, reads as a joint venture in manufacture and fabrication.
Strikingly similar to Samsung’s current arrangement, where Samsung Electronics (and others) purchase from Samsung Semiconductor.
Its a financing move, to free up cash and cut operating cost. You still get your supplies for the sensors, but you have someone to share the cost and help to manage quality, innovation and other aspect of of business. Since the party is a foundry, sourcing for wafer could lead to better pricing etc.
And perhaps being a ‘specialty foundry’, the have part of the tooling required to produce these organic sensors?
Interesting times ahead.
Yes, it just meant Sony f* them in the sensor field. Oly is sourcing already Sony sensors. Actually I liked the Pana look better than the to me too catchy Oly digital colors. Canon is well, do they still upgrade their sensors??? Nikon is shuffling with Sony, Toshiba, and maybe some inhouse design optimisations? Dunno what Samsung is up to, but they sure should have the financial stamina to keep investing in sensor tech, can use it for the phones as well.
Panasonic involved with Fuji and Leica: I can’t wait to see the results. Interesting times ahead indeed.
Atarandas is right-it will cut costs for Panasonic by hiving off the now-commodity business of silicon chip manufacture to those who are less bound by labor agreements and can move production to the cheapest places in the world. Leica doesn’t make its own sensors, Panasonic doesn’t need to either.
Perhaps this means that a new line of large sensor Panasonic cameras is on its way? This new partner with facilitate manufacturing? Stay thirsty my friends.
dream on.. they will make small sensors for phones and sensors for survilance cameras.
that´s where teh money is for such companys.
TowerJazz: A name that says “We don’t give a flip about our name.” 🙂
Their font is just terrible- it looks straight out of 1992.. 😛
that TowerJazz looks to be strong company so this could be good info and could bring new wind to Pana sensors
for years i tell you m43 is a dead end… when will you noobs get it?
YOU tell us? We don’t pay attention to MORONS. Oh, I forgot, you’re too illiterate to read.
Nah, this shouldn’t be bad news, usually news of a JV is a *good* thing!
However there is surprisingly little info there about what is TowerJazz putting into this for Panasonic? I’m assuming via TowerJazz’s network it means heaps more sales? (and expertise) Which will thus make Panasonic’s remaining 49% worth a lot more.
and what do you know jerk?
Far far more knowledge of math, economics, R&D, and logistics than you do I’m sure 🙂
Bla, it means Panasonic is hemorrhaging cash out of their ass and they are happy to give away at whatever price the imaging (only imaging, or other semi conductor stuff too?) sensor production facilities. It means they can also buy some other better and cheaper Sony or whatever sensors in the future. Personally I liked the Pana sensor coloring, but I am not using m43, so don’t care much. But I guess there will be less and less variety in the future, and Nikon and Sony at some point risc on getting dependend on Sony.
Oh, before I forget. Tower*ass as a company has less than a billion USD on assets. Devestment on Panasonic’s side…
i meant, Nikon and Canon… thought it looks Canon seems to get away without any new sensors…
TowerJazz: http://www.jazzsemi.com/
Hot new small sensors are coming next year.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/us-towerjazz-panasonic-idUSBRE9BJ08E20131220
http://www.towerjazz.com/prs/TowerJazz_Panasonic_JV_QA.pdf
http://www.towerjazz.com/prs/TowerJazz_JV_PR_20Dec2013.pdf
Ah ha!! This has *MUCH* more info.
TowerJazz will issue $8 million of its ordinary shares to Panasonic. (hmmm… I’d kind of expected more?)
Let’s hope the new company will actually release new innovative products, the fact that the GH3 uses a sony sensor is downright embarrassing for panasonic
I’d rather have the Panasonic G6 than the GH3 🙂
> “The three aging plants, which are fully depreciated, had a combined book value of 42.2 billion yen ($416 million) as of March 31.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/27/panasonic-restructuring-idUSL4N0JC00C20131127
Hmmm… while I’m still struggling to see exactly how this is great news for Panasonic (51% of $416 million is a large chunk of change!), it does seems that the market at least is reacting positively that this is great news for *both* companies (which makes sense, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing a JV).
“* Panasonic shares up 3.5 pct, best close in nearly 3 yrs”
And TowerJazz’s shares have soared since the announcement.
> “Panasonic’s chip business has racked up losses reaching 20.5 billion yen in the latest financial year due to a scaling back of its consumer electronics divisions.”
> “With the sale of the chip plants, as well as early retirement offers and transfers to other operations, Panasonic will halve its semiconductor-segment workforce to around 7,000 by the business year to March 2015, one of the sources said.”
Ahhh… this is making more sense, the JV for Panasonic is about cutting costs for them.
> Ahhh… this is making more sense, the JV for Panasonic is about cutting costs for them.
Good find. To add:
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000724360&fid=1725
Tower got subsidy from Japanese gov’t to upgrade its fabs in Japan. Probably Panny wants a piece of the action.
Ohhh…. cunning!
Yes, who knows what other things are going on in the shadows which influence and explain this deal.
“In short: TowerJazz now decides what has to be done and what not! This is quite a surprise!”
I’m not sure how precisely the imaging differs from the general semi-conductor industry.
But in semi-conductor industry that is a common practice to *not* own the manufacturing. Either spin it off or sell its share to a competitor.
Semi-manufacturing is an involved process where often details of upcoming products or trade-secret research projects leak into. That means, if business is owned solely by Panasonic, all the companies who think of Panasonic as competitor, wouldn’t use its foundry services. That potentially means under-utilization of the manufacturing capacities. Making the business independent – one way or another – allows other companies to use the foundry for their products (and also share costs of the foundry upgrades).
The more interesting question is: what about that joint venture with Fuji into the organic sensors?
P.S. It’s an Israeli company:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Semiconductor
Seems Panasonic is leaving the MFT behind. Their new ventures lay ahead, and this unfortunate partnership with a corrupt company (Olympus)is over.
Good news for those who appreciate Panasonic as a company.
I don’t see anywhere where you can make such an assertion. Admin, you’re headline is very misleading and needs to be changed.
The electronics business is moving faster and faster and as far as I can tell, this allows Panasonic to be far more nimble in bringing new tech to the market, rather than the two year development cycle that has been the trend for GH cameras, for example.
Now I’m not saying that this is all to do with m43 cameras, but it does have to do with creating more inovative and hopefully cheaper sensors, of whatever size.
And as a previous poster states, the finacial markets (for what its worth) think this is a smart move.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/us-towerjazz-panasonic-idUSBRE9BJ08E20131220
> “TowerJazz already has customers seeking to have their products manufactured at the Japanese facilities, he said.”
> “Ellwanger said he hoped the loss-making company would turn profitable by the fourth quarter of 2014.”
Ahhh… yes, making heaps more sense now!
Now, the question for 43rumors readers…. *WHAT IS IN IT FOR US*?? 😛 😉
Two things:
1) Panasonic is now better off financially and on more stable footing, which of course helps further improve the future outlook for Panasonic’s Micro Four Thirds cameras that will be made for us in the years to come.
2) Panasonic’s own current generation sensor tech might get sold to other camera manufacturers, perhaps we might find another small player (like Blackmagic Design) come to join the Micro Four Thirds system?
btw, check out the charts, you can see the huge rise for TowerJazz going from the 19th to the 20th (when this announcement was):
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=TSEM.O
Panasonic also got a small rise from this over the same period (though of course Panasonic is a *MUCH* bigger company, thus naturally such news makes a smaller impact on it):
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=6752.T
This is another detailed article on this:
http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.co.nz/2013/12/its-official-towerjazz-acquires.html
It means only one thing. More Sony sensors for all m43 cameras. GH3 was the beginning, Oly is already fully on Sony, not? Actually liked the Pana colors better, but what the heck, not into m43.
The right move is Pana should leave to Fuji to create & develop their sensors & modify it later according to It’s innovative standard .
Optics wise , of course in Leica form .
Concentrate in developing global shutter is what Pana need to acheive ASAP .