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Panasonic has sold off its entire Tesla stake

The multinational electronics company Panasonic has sold off its entire Tesla stake last fiscal year Which has helped Panasonic earn billions of dollars in proceeds to fund new investments.

Panasonic initially bought 1.4 million shares at $21.15 each around the time of Tesla’s June 2010 IPO.

The company reported its stake was worth about $730 million at the end of March 2020, prior to Tesla’s 5-to-1 stock split last year and massive price increase throughout late 2020. Based on that year-earlier position, Panasonic’s stake would have been worth $4.6 billion had it not sold any shares.

Along with Toyota and Daimler, carmakers that both invested in and worked with Tesla in its formative years (and in Toyota’s case, sold it a massive assembly plant), Panasonic proved to be a particularly valuable partner.

It supplied ever greater quantities of lithium-ion cells for Tesla vehicles, working closely with Tesla engineers to modify the chemistry and design to optimize them for use in high-powered electric cars.

Panasonic also works with Tesla at its Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, and previously made solar power products for it at the carmaker’s Buffalo, New York plant before shutting down its operations there in the summer of 2020.

The sale helps meet Panasonic’s growing appetite for capital. In addition to a $7.1 billion deal to buy U.S. supply chain software developer Blue Yonder, announced in April, the company continues to invest in growing its auto battery operations.

All of the Tesla shares held by Panasonic were sold by the end of March. The gain accounted for much of the 429.9 billion yen ($3.88 billion) in “proceeds from sale and redemption of investments” in the company’s consolidated statements of cash flows for that fiscal year, up about 380 billion yen from the year before.

About Panasonic

The company previously known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. is a multinational electronics company which is based in Japan.

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