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Panasonic has sold its entire stake in Tesla, a long-time battery partner, for about $ 400 billion ($ 3.6 billion) as it seeks to raise money to fund its largest overseas acquisition.
The Japanese conglomerate, which has a $ 5 billion jointly manufactured battery venture with Tesla in Nevada, said the sale would not affect its partnership with the U.S. electric vehicle maker.
But the step comes after Panasonic made it clear it wanted to reduce their heavy dependence at Tesla and supply batteries to other vehicle manufacturers as the industry shifts to electric vehicles to reduce its carbon footprint.
The Japanese group acquired 1.4 million Tesla shares at $ 21.15 each in 2010 for about $ 30 million. In March last year, it had shares worth 980.9 billion, but that stake was reduced to zero at the end of last March, according to a statement filed on Friday. During these twelve months, Tesla shares rose more than six times. It closed at $ 679.82 on Thursday.
“The goal is to review strategic ownership actions following corporate governance guidelines,” the company said in an emailed statement. “It doesn’t affect the collaboration with Tesla and we continue to maintain good relations.”
Since the 2010 investment, Elon Musk has transformed Tesla from a company that lost cash and lost investment most valuable car manufacturer in the world worth $ 655 billion, nearly 23 times the market value of Panasonic, even after the shares closed 4.9% higher on Friday.
Although Panasonic used to be the only battery supplier to Tesla, the American group has started developing their own batteries and join its purchasing partners with LG Chem of South Korea and CATL of China to support growing sales of its vehicles.
For Panasonic, its investment of more than $ 2 billion in the joint venture of battery manufacturing has finally begun to bear fruit, as the Japanese group he made his first annual profit of Tesla’s battery business for the fiscal year ended March.
But the Japanese conglomerate has been expanding investment in other areas to strengthen its position in software. In April, it announced a $ 7.1 billion deal to buy the US supply chain Blue Yonder specialist.
In an interview in March, Panasonic President Kazuhiro Tsuga told the Financial Times that the group’s collaboration with Tesla was entering “a different phase.”
“At some point, we have to graduate from our one-legged approach based solely on Tesla,” Tsuga said. “We need to monitor the supply of non-Tesla manufacturers.”
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