Ricoh Co, the second largest maker of office equipment in Japan, last year agreed to buy Pennsylvania based Ikon Office Solutions Inc for US$1.62 billion to expand sales and services operations in the US. "Canon probably has been considering a counterattack ever since Ikon was taken over by rival," said Tetsuya Wadaki, a Tokyo based analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc. Canon needs to strengthen its US operation to win market share in the region to compete against firms such as Xerox Corp, he said.
Ricoh Co (RICOY US): Japan's second largest maker of office equipment may rise 30 percent or more during the next year as the global economy improves and recent acquisitions boost profit, Barron's reported, citing Yoshikazu Higurashi, an analyst at Deutsche Securities Inc in Tokyo. Thoratec Corp (THOR US): The maker of a mechanical heart that's smaller than a D cell battery said it agreed to terminate a merger agreement with HeartWave International Inc (HIN AU).
By so many measures, Ricoh , the Japanese office equipment maker, is a leader in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). You can spend several hours on the Ricoh website reading about their numerous CSR initiatives, their environmentally friendly products and processes, as well as the many awards they have won over the past 20 years. The company places corporate citizenship at the core of their mission and makes the effort to integrate these core values through every part of their business.
Ricoh Co. , Japan's second largest maker of office equipment, may rise 30 percent or more over the next year as the global economy improves and recent acquisitions boost profit, Barron's reported, citing Yoshikazu Higurashi , an analyst at Deutsche Securities Inc in Tokyo.
Ricoh Co. , Japan's second largest maker of office equipment, may rise 30 percent or more over the next year as the global economy improves and recent acquisitions boost profit, Barron's reported, citing Yoshikazu Higurashi , an analyst at Deutsche Securities Inc in Tokyo. The 2007 purchase of InfoPrint Solutions, International Business Machine Corp. 's printing systems unit, provides Ricoh with a foothold in the high volume document market, "one of the fastest growing segments" for office equipment, the weekly newspaper said in its Aug. 3 issue, citing Kunihiko Kanno , an analyst at Credit Suisse in Tokyo.
Then in August of 2008, Ricoh purchased Ikon Office Solutions, a key distributor of copiers and printers for Ricoh's better known rival, Canon. "The IBM purchase provides Ricoh with a solid foothold from which to launch further products in the high volume document market," says Kunihiko Kanno, an analyst who follows Ricoh for Credit Suisse in Tokyo. "Digital commercial printers are used to print big documents such as product manuals and direct mail quickly and in large volumes," he adds. "This is one of the fastest growing segments of the office equipment market," he says.
Ikon is among the factors that persuade analysts that the stock is worth a second look. Yoshikazu Higurashi, who follows the company for Deutsche Bank in Tokyo, rates the shares a Buy, with 12 month yen price target that translates into a dollar price of $84 for Ricoh's ADRs. that's 30% upside, or more. Kondo's confidence has helped him through a tough indoctrination as president and chief executive officer.
Any company with a technology edge has no choice but to run fast to maintain its lead. The consolation for Xerox, as Ken Weilerstein at Gartner describes it, is that the lead it is building over rivals like Ricoh and Canon is likely to endure in the long term. The short term picture is less pretty. The best it can hope for is that its new printers will catch the early winds of the next economic upturn and pull it out of the recession faster than the competitors.
Ricoh offered to pay $17.25 a share for Malvern, Pa.-based Ikon, an 11 percent premium over Ikon's closing price of $15.56 Tuesday and the largest acquisition for the Japanese company. The deal takes the last independent printer distributor in North America off the market.. "It's a reasonable price," said Shannon Cross, an analyst with Cross Research in Livingston, N.J. "Ricoh gets an expanded U.S distribution network. There's not another asset like it anymore." . The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter, Tokyo-based Ricoh said..
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