Japanese company Matsushita Electric Works, owner of the National and Panasonic brands, has bought an 80 per cent stake in Anchor Electricals, which is promoted by the Shah family and has a 60 per cent market share in India, for Rs 2,000 crore ($420 million). Matsushita Electric Works is a unit of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd, the world’s largest consumer electronics maker.

The Anchor board members would continue to hold the remaining 20 per cent, a senior Anchor official said today. The new Anchor board would have six Matsushita officials while four members of the Shah family would be in the top management body.

The acquisition would help Matsushita gain entry into the “growing but unorganised and fragmented” Indian electrical market, Anchor managing director Atul Shah told reporters here today. “We decided to partner with Matsushita for its research and development (R&D) and technology to complement our brand value, network and product line up. The partnership will help us to expand our product category,” he said.

Matsushita expects to recover the Rs 2,000-crore investment in Anchor over a period of seven years, the new Anchor chairman, Toshihide Arii, said. Arii is a Matsushita representative.

Anchor’s sales for March 2006-07 were Rs 920 crore. “We expect to double our sales to Rs 1,800 crore by 2011 and target to grow 10 times in the next decade,” Shah informed.

Matsushita’s group sales for March 2006 were $13.73 billion, Arii said. The acquisition of a majority stake in Anchor would help Matsushita increase group sales and current market share in Asia, he added. The acquisition of the Anchor stake will hike Matsushita’s Asian market share from 30.5 to 36 per cent.

... contd.