According to the latest sources, the Japanese company Panasonic Corporation, known for the sale of its consumer electronics products, is on the verge of acquiring the American software provider Blue Yonder, formerly known as JDA, with the aim of strengthening all the supply chain management services.
In recent years, Panasonic has specialized in the creation of components and in the supply of services for other companies (such as the batteries for all electric cars Tesla), while the American company uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to support and help companies in supply chains management that coordinate factories with warehouses and retailers.
Although no official statement has yet arrived confirming a possible agreement between the two companies, some rumours say that Panasonic is about to invest 700 billion yen, or rather 6.5 billion dollars, to close the deal. This strategic move would represent the largest acquisition made by the Japanese company in the last eleven years.
In 2011, Panasonic cough up a sum of 800 billion yen to turn Sanyo Electric and Panasonic Electric Works into two subsidiaries under its control. In addition, the Japanese company spent about 86 billion yen to buy a 20% minority ownership stake in Blue Yonder last year, thus obtaining a seat on the board of directors, and if the merger that has been talked about so much in the last days will end successfully, then Panasonic will also get the rest of the stock from shareholders, including Blackstone Group Inc, one of the largest global financial companies. The sources state that the acquisition will come from the Japanese company’s own funds, although other possible forms of financing should be consider.
The Japanese company, with its billion-dollar action could thus make use of a combination of hardware, software, devices and sensors to support companies and help them improve their operational efficiency and offer customers machine learning-based services to better control all supplies.
All we can do is wait for any possible confirmations or denials from the two societies involved.
