Osram is set to strengthen its position in entertainment lighting and agreed to acquire Clay Paky, a leading maker of entertainment lighting for shows and events. The profitable company from Northern Italy is privately owned and recently generated annual sales of more than €60 million (US $80.40 million). Its products include so-called moving heads, follow spots and projectors. 

USHIO (TOKYO:6925) (President and CEO: Shiro Sugata), announced that its wholly owned subsidiary USHIO OPTO SEMICONDUCTORS, INC., headquartered in Tokyo, has signed a demerger agreement with Oclaro Japan (President: Tadayuki Kanno), a wholly owned subsidiary of Oclaro (CEO: Greg Dougherty). Through this agreement, USHIO OPTO SEMICONDUCTORS will acquire the LED, red, violet and part of the infrared laser diode business from Oclaro Japan. The acquired activity is primarily located in Komoro, Japan and includes approximately 80 employees.

According to LEDinside, a research division of TrendForce, starting from August 2012, at least 5 M&A cases occurred in China and Taiwan; Epistar, for example, acquired 49% of Huga’s equity, and Sanan Opto acquired 120 million of FOREPI’s common stock. LEDinside indicated that starting from 2010, Chinese LED chip industries have aggressively invested in chips and caused severe oversupply in the market; chip price has continued to decline, and most industries have been struggling to survive in the industry. Even with the economic recovery, upstream LED chip manufacturers still failed to extricate themselves from the oversupply situation. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that M&A is the only solution to this problem.