NEC to exit smartphone business after failed deal with Lenovo: Nikkei

July 17, 2013 Leave a comment

NEC to exit smartphone business after failed deal with Lenovo: Nikkei

2:28pm EDT

(Reuters) – Japan’s NEC Corp plans to exit its loss-making smartphone business after a deal with Chinese PC maker Lenovo Group Ltd failed to materialize, the Nikkei reported. The two companies have a partnership in the personal computers business and NEC was in talks with Lenovo for a deal for its smartphones operations since late 2012, the Japanese daily reported. The Japanese electronics company had offered Lenovo a majority stake in NEC Casio Mobile Communications Ltd, its subsidiary that makes smartphones. Casio Computer Co and Hitachi Ltd are among NEC Casio’s current investors. NEC, once a market leader in the smartphones business in Japan, currently has a market share of about 5 percent, the business daily said. The Japanese company will now focus on conventional handsets and plans to sell some of its mobile phone-related patents, according to the Nikkei. NEC will reassign majority of NEC Casio employees to other group firms, the paper said.

 

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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