Japanese electronics magnate, Panasonic Corporation is selling its office building in central Tokyo for around $536 million to the same two companies that recently purchased Sony Corporation's "Sony City Osaki" building for $1.2 billion.
Details of the deal have already been sketched out and the sale is expected to be completed by Tuesday, March 12. The buyers, Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Nippon Fund Inc will hold 90 and 10 percent of the stakes in the building, respectively. However, Panasonic will be leasing the building for ten years after the sale, as a large part of its operations are carried out from the office, reports CBN News.
The office building popularly known as the "Tokyo Shiodome Building" is a 43 story high rise, which was completed in 2003. Around 2200 Panasonic employees work in the building.
The Tokyo Shiodome Building sale is Panasonic's third real estate trade-off in the past few months. It recently sold two of its buildings in Tokyo's Minato Ward to raise around $100 million. The sale was aimed at raising cash to stabilize its deteriorating finances, reports Reuters.
Panasonic has incurred losses worth $1.3 trillion in the last two years. Selling off real estate seems to be the most attractive option to cover up the damages. It had announced late in 2012 that it would be cutting down around 10,000 jobs by the end of March 2013.
The story of Sony and Panasonic is similar. Both the companies are downsizing on their real estate to focus more on its core business operations - electronics.
At the end of 2012, Panasonic posted a loss of $6.77 billion in nine months until December 2012. It also predicts a net loss of around $8.3 billion in the quarter ending in March 2013. The losses come as a result of weak global demand for flat-panel TVs, reports Yahoo.