Japan’s Panasonic Corporation announced that it has entered into a share transfer agreement with Munich-based Fidelium Partners, under which all shares of Panasonic Lighting Europe, which focuses on the lighting device business in Europe as a wholly owned consolidated subsidiary of Panasonic, will be transferred to the German investment firm.

Panasonic acquired German lighting device manufacturer Vossloh Schwabe in August 2002 to expand its lighting device business in Europe and worked to strengthen sales of lighting devices for conventional light sources such as fluorescent lamps and mercury lamps, and LED devices to lighting fixture manufacturers.

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However, competition in the lighting industry has been intensifying globally as the broad use of LEDs provided an opening to new entrants. In the European market, in particular, the commoditization of LED-based lighting devices and the shift to a vertically integrated business model driven by the popularity of LEDs is in progress.

Under such circumstances, Panasonic, with aim to accelerate the concentration of the business, has decided to transfer the shares of the European lighting device business to Fidelium Partners, which valued PLE’s accumulated technologies and product strengths and is expected to successfully continue and grow the business in Europe.

Going forward, Panasonic will step up its effort to accelerate the replacement of conventional lighting fixtures with LEDs in Japan and broaden the use of new and high value-added products in order to maintain growth and expand the lighting business. With lighting fixture sales in Southeast Asia, India, and China as growth engines, the company will work to achieve sustainable growth with profitability both in Japan and abroad.

Further, the company will accelerate its shift to the space creation business by delivering cross value solutions through integrations of light sources and fixtures.