Strategy in TECH...
On Monday, I received a note from Premium Audio Company regarding my post on the bankruptcy of Onkyo Home Entertainment Co. Ltd. In this note, the company sought to get the message across that the Onkyo bankruptcy has nothing to do with them and that the Onkyo brand lives on under the guidance of its new owner, Premium Audio Company, a subsidiary of VOXX International.
Onkyo Home Entertainment Co. Ltd. (Onkyo) has announced that its two consolidated subsidiaries – Onkyo Sound Co. Ltd. (ONS) and Onkyo Marketing Co. Ltd (OMC) – have filed for bankruptcy. The company said that it had petitioned the court to begin bankruptcy proceedings for these divisions and has received judicial approval to begin the bankruptcy process from the Osaka District Court in Osaka, Japan.
Voxx International has announced that they have finalized their agreement to partner with Sharp Corporation to acquire the Home Entertainment Division of Onkyo – news that Strata-gee readers knew about last week. The news comes as a result of Onkyo shareholders voting last Friday to approve the sale of the company to Voxx’s subsidiary known as the Premium Audio Company. Not much was new here on the Onkyo front, as we already told you about the deal only covering the Onkyo and Integra brands. However, we did learn some more interesting details on the company’s attempts relative to the Pioneer and Pioneer Elite brands.
In a rather terse announcement to investors posted today, Onkyo Home Entertainment Company, Ltd. announced that, by a majority vote of company shareholders, the sale of the company’s Home Entertainment Division to Voxx International has been approved. This vote of approval was widely anticipated and represents the last formality in the transfer of the company over to Voxx. This is the first time since 1945 that Onkyo’s parent company is no longer involved in the home entertainment business.
Well after much coverage on the VOXX/Onkyo deal by Strata-gee, in which VOXX remained strangely silent, the company finally issued a press release today in which they acknowledged that they had signed an asset purchase agreement (APA) with Onkyo for $30.8 million. The deal remains subject to approval by Onkyo shareholders in a vote scheduled to take place on June 25, 2021.
This news was likely not a surprise to Strata-gee readers. But what was a surprise is that this purchase does NOT include the Pioneer and Pioneer Elite brands.
On Wednesday, at a specially convened meeting of the Board of Directors for Onkyo Home Entertainment Co. Ltd. (Onkyo), company directors formally voted to authorize the transfer of Onkyo’s home AV division to the partnership of VOXX, Intl. and Sharp Corporation, in a deal valued at $30.3 million. The transaction is pending shareholder approval. This development represents real progress on a deal that had appeared to be bogged down recently.
This week we learned that 11 Trading Company…part of Premium Audio Company…which itself is part of Voxx International (love those big corporate structures), has added the only remaining Onkyo brands – Teac & Esoteric – to their distribution line list. They did not include these brands in the original announcement of their agreement with Onkyo, but most people expected it to be added in time. With this new development we get a nice progression of the budding relationship between the companies – Voxx distributing Onkyo, Integra, Pioneer, Pioneer Elite, Teac & Esoteric – while Onkyo Corp. becomes the Klipsch distributor in Japan. Where could this be heading?
