Tokyo), Dec. 17, 2019 – MINEBEA MITSUMI Inc. (the "Company") hereby announces that it has decided, by a resolution of its Board of Directors on December 17, 2019, to acquire the shares of ABLIC Inc. ("ABLIC") (the "Acquisition of Shares"), as a result of which ABLIC will be a subsidiary of the Company, and that it entered into a share transfer agreement (the "Share Transfer Agreement") with Development Bank of Japan Inc. and Seiko Instruments Inc. on December 17, 2019, as detailed below.
The Company's basic strategy is to identify the products as its core business called the "Eight Spears" in which the Company can demonstrate its strength, such as super-precision processing technologies and mass production technologies, and which would not be easily eliminated from the market and to provide the customers with new values by combining and integrating such products. Because analog semiconductors, one of the "Eight Spears", are important components as a gateway to IoT technologies, which is a business area that the Company is focusing on, the Company intends to further expand its analog semiconductor business by enhancing its product portfolio and entering new application markets.
ABLIC is a semiconductor manufacturer based on watch-related technologies with a large number of unique products that utilize low-current consumption, low-voltage operation and ultra-small packaging technologies, mainly analog ICs, such as voltage regulators / voltage detectors and lithium-ion battery Protection ICs for consumer products, automotive EEPROM, and ultrasound imaging ICs for medical devices. In addition, in the growing markets such as those for automotive devices, medical devices, and IoT/wearable devices, ABLIC has realized a continuous design-win.
ABLIC and the Company have respective product portfolios which can be complemented each other, and the Acquisition of Shares will enable us to achieve multiple synergistic effects. In respect of research and development, the Acquisition of Shares will enable the Company to develop and manufacture products with even higher performance and quality by integrating both companies' advanced technologies. In addition, when it comes to manufacturing, the Company will be able to improve quality and productivity and strengthen both companies' BCP responsiveness through joint production activities at the wafer process and assembly and testing process plants of both companies and by sharing industrial technologies and know-how seamlessly between the companies. Furthermore, the Company expects to generate synergies that are not limited to the semiconductor field, such as the mutual use of the sales channels of the Company's group and ABLIC, and the application by ABLIC of the knowledge possessed by other divisions of the Company to the development of new products.
Through the Acquisition of Shares, the Company will strengthen its efforts to expand the sales of high value-added products targeting medical devices as well as products targeting the industrial/housing device market and enhance the expansion of its market share in the car infotainment market, thereby the Company will contribute to the re-growth of the Japanese semiconductor industry by expanding the scale of its semiconductor business and enhancing its position in the analog semiconductor market.
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