Panasonic in talks to buy controlling stake in focus
Focus Lighting and Fixtures
, in what would be its second acquisition in the electricals segment in India after nearly two decades, said people aware of the matter.
The Sheth family, founding shareholders of Focus Group, owns 55% of the NSE-listed company. The remainder is with the public including individuals and bodies corporate.
Panasonic is looking to acquire the promoters' entire shareholding in Focus Lighting, said the people cited above. A potential deal would trigger a mandatory open offer to the company's public shareholders for at least 26% stake as per Sebi guidelines, they said.
The acquisition would cost Osaka-headquartered Panasonic about ₹526 crore, including the 26% open offer, based on Focus Lighting's current market capitalisation, as per ET's calculations.
According to the people cited above, the negotiations are at an advanced stage, but the due diligence of Focus has brought to light issues which need to be addressed before inking the contract.
A spokesperson for Panasonic's electric works business divisions (erstwhile Anchor) said the speculation "appears to be unfounded.' 'No such information has been shared, and to our knowledge, no such facts exist,' he said.
Focus, which listed on NSE's small and medium enterprises (SME) board in 2017, did not respond to ET's queries.
The company makes light fittings for commercial uses such as retail store facades and interiors. Its clientele includes Reliance Retail and DLF.
The Indian B2B market for lighting products and fixtures is mostly unorganised with the presence of several small and local companies in the segment.
Matsushita Electric
, Panasonic's previous avatar, had acquired household name Anchor Electricals in 2007, getting a foothold in the business-to-customer (B2C) home electricals and light fitting segment.
The electric works business, which includes LED lighting products, switches and wires, cables, smart home products and energy solutions is the largest revenue contributor for Panasonic in India, accounting for over half of
Panasonic Life Solutions
India Pvt Ltd sales, the flagship entity. The rest comes from AC, televisions, industrial and system solutions, lithium-ion battery trading, and smart factory solutions of SMT machines, robotic arms and welding machines.
Panasonic's efforts to acquire control of Focus Group underscores its strategy to enhance its footprint in the B2B segment, its biggest revenue-generator globally.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
14 minutes ago
- Time of India
Ola Electric held talks on potential high-yield debt financing: Sources
Ola Electric Mobility Ltd , an Indian electric vehicle maker whose shares have fallen about 50 per cent this year, recently held talks with lenders to explore raising money through high-yield debt, according to people familiar with the matter. The company was seeking about 10 billion rupees ($116 million), primarily for working capital, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. The talks were preliminary, and it's not clear if Ola or the lenders would choose to proceed further, the people said. Potential details that were discussed included the tenor of any borrowing, which could be about 36 months, according to the people. They added that at least some of the potential lenders would treat this as special situation financing, and would ask for an interest rate between 17.5 per cent and 20%. That range is typical for such deals that often involve businesses facing a liquidity crunch. 'Raising working capital is a routine aspect of running a business, something Ola Electric , and virtually every other company, does regularly,' said an Ola Electric spokesperson. 'Your claims are speculative and misleading and we decline to comment further on this topic.' The decline in Ola Electric's shares this year has come as it grapples with crises including instances of scooters catching fire, as well as eroding market share a year after a blockbuster IPO. As shares tumbled, founder Bhavish Aggarwal paid about 200 million rupees in cash to top up collateral for borrowings against the shares, Bloomberg reported in June.
Time of India
14 minutes ago
- Time of India
Google to invest $6 billion in southern India data centre
By Sudarshan Varadhan SINGAPORE: Google will invest $6 billion to develop a 1-gigawatt data centre and its power infrastructure in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh in the Alphabet unit's first such investment in India, government sources said on Wednesday. Due to be built in the port city of Visakhapatnam, the data centre investment includes $2 billion in renewable energy capacity that will be used to power the facility, two Andhra Pradesh government sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The search giant's data centre will be the largest in capacity and investment size in Asia and is part a multi-billion-dollar expansion of its data centre portfolio across the region in countries including Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. In April, Alphabet said it was still committed to spending some $75 billion this year to build data centre capacity despite the economic uncertainty resulting from U.S. President Donald Trump's global tariff offensive. Alphabet did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment. Andhra Pradesh's information technology minister Nara Lokesh, who is in Singapore to discuss investments with thegovernment and business leaders there, did not comment on the Google investment. "We've made certain announcements like Sify, which are public," he said, referring to a 550-MW data centre Sify Technologies plans to build in the state. "There are certain announcements which are not yet public. In October, we will make those announcements." STATE'S POST-SPLIT INVESTMENT DRIVE Andhra Pradesh, a state run by a leading ally of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was split into two in 2014, losing its former capital Hyderabad and a major revenue source to the newly created Telangana state. Andhra Pradesh has since been looking to attract investments to ease the financial strains of high debt and social spending. Lokesh said Andhra Pradesh has already been able to finalise investments in data centres with total capacity of 1.6 GW, adding that it aims to build 6 GW of data centres over the next five years from nearly zero currently. He expects the initial 1.6 GW of already agreed data centres to be operational in the next 24 months. That would be more than the 1.4 GW currently in operation in the entire country, according to real estate consultancy Anarock. "We're also working on getting three cable landing stations in Visakhapatnam. We want to create enough of cable network, which will be two times what Mumbai has today," Lokesh said. Cable landing stations - typically located close to data centres requiring fast and reliable connections to global networks - are used to store equipment which receives and relays data from undersea cables. Lokesh also said the state was looking to build up energy infrastructure to meet sustainability requirements of data centres. He said he anticipated power generation capacity requirements of as much as 10 GW from the electricity-intensive industry over the next five years. "Majority will end up being actually green energy, and that's the unique value proposition that we bring to the table," he said. Some of the additional capacity will be coal-fired, however, as data centres require reliable, high volume power throughout the day, he added.
Time of India
14 minutes ago
- Time of India
Vahan bags undisclosed amount from LemmaTree
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Vahan, a recruitment platform for blue-collar workers , has secured an undisclosed amount from Temasek-founded investment firm is an investment firm—set up by a team within Singapore's sovereign fund Temasek—focussed on decentralised supply chain technology and worker-centric to the company, the funds will be used for strengthening the company's proprietary technology, with a focus on building advanced AI features designed to support large-scale, multilingual recruitment processes.'The recruitment industry in India is undergoing a revolution, but for that growth to be sustainable and equitable, workers need both access and advancement. The focus now is on deepening personalisation, scaling across new industries, and ensuring that every interaction on our platform moves a worker closer to long-term economic mobility ,' said Madhav Krishna, founder and chief executive, to the company, it has also acquired the digital learning and upskilling platform of job matching platform GoodWorker, which was backed by LemmaTree. offers mobile-first, vernacular content specifically designed for gig and frontline workers in sectors such as logistics, manufacturing, and move is intended to help Vahan incorporate modular skill development into the job search process, allowing workers to improve their employability, qualify for higher-paying jobs, and build sustainable career in 2016, Vahan is a technology-driven platform that helps blue-collar workers find jobs and employers the right candidate. To date, the company has placed more than one million workers across over 920 currently facilitates around 40,000 job placements per month. Vahan's clients include major gig-economy companies such as Zomato Swiggy , Flipkart, Zepto, Blinkit, Amazon, Rapido, and last raised $10 million in September last year in a funding round led by existing investor Khosla platform plans to extend its language support to eight more Indian languages, enhancing its reach among job seekers in tier II and III cities. Vahan also plans to tap into new high-growth sectors and expand its presence across India as well as international markets like Southeast Asia and the MENA on the investment, Glenn Gore, chief executive, LemmaTree, said, 'Vahan's innovative platform and team are unlocking new opportunities for millions, driving both economic empowerment and operational efficiency.'
