Panasonic to Sell Semiconductor Business to Nuvoton

Reuters: Panasonic announces the selling of its loss-making semiconductor unit to Taiwan’s Nuvoton, a part of Winbond Group, for $250M. The sale includes image sensor business and Tower-Panasonic JV fabs. The transaction is expected to close by June 2020.

Panasonic says, "...the competitive environment surrounding the semiconductor business has become extremely severe due to aggressive expansion of competitors, huge investments in the focused area, and industry reorganization through M&A. In such an environment, the Company has come to believe that the even stronger business operation and the continuous investment is critical in order to achieve a sustained growth and expansion of the semiconductor business.

Accordingly, it has concluded that the best option would be to transfer the business to Nuvoton, which highly appreciates the Company’s accumulated technical and product capabilities and therefore has a potential to lead stable growth by leveraging those capabilities."