Sony, Toshiba to sell liquid crystal display plants

Japanese electronics giant Sony has agreed to sell its stake in a joint liquid crystal display panel venture in South Korea to its partner Samsung Electronics, the two companies said Monday.Samsung will acquire all of Sony's stake in S-LCD Corp., making it a wholly owned subsidiary of the Korean company, they said in a statement.The Asian electronics giants have worked together since the 1990s in the semiconductor and LCD fields.

Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi said Wednesday they will work with a government-backed fund to spin off and merge their liquid crystal display business, joining forces in the face of rising global competition.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Sony Corp, Toshiba Corp and Hitachi Ltd said on Wednesday they will merge their liquid-crystal display operations using government-backed funding, to better compete with low-cost panels from South Korea and Taiwan.

Japanese electronics and entertainment giant Sony said Thursday it was selling its chemical products division to the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) as part of a massive overhaul of its business.Sony, which has been struggling with huge losses, did not say how much the bank would pay for the chemical division which makes a variety of products, including film used in liquid-crystal display panels.Sony, which said it was aiming to finalise the deal by May and complete the sale in the first quarter of 2013, said the unit no longer fit into its wider restructuring plan.

Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi on Tuesday said they had signed a deal to merge their small and medium-sized liquid crystal display businesses for smartphones and tablet computers.The move will create a new company, Japan Display, by Spring 2012.The company will be partly financed by the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, a private-public investment fund established in 2009 to support next-generation businesses.Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi announced the plan in August.

(Alexander Heinz)