Xerox CEO Jeff Jacobson: ‘the combination … will prove transformational’
Following an article published in the Wall Street Journal in January, Fujifilm Holdings and Xerox have confirmed that Xerox and the existing Fuji Xerox joint venture will be merged.
The deal, which will create a ‘global leader in innovative print technologies and intelligent work solutions with annual revenues of $18 billion and leadership positions in key geographic regions’, is worth around $9.80 per share to Xerox shareholders who will own 49.9% of the merged business, while Fujifilm holds the balance.
The merged business will be known as Fuji Xerox and the existing Xerox and Fuji Xerox brands will be continue to be used in their respective regions. It will be jointly headquartered in Tokyo and in Connecticut, USA.
Shigetaka Komori, chairman and chief executive officer of Fujifilm, said, ‘Fujifilm and Xerox have fostered an exceptional partnership through our existing Fuji Xerox joint venture, and this transaction is a strategic evolution of our alliance. The Document Solutions business represents a significant part of Fujifilm’s portfolio, and the creation of the new Fuji Xerox allows us to more directly establish a leadership position in a fast-changing market. We believe Fujifilm’s track record of advancing technology in innovative imaging and information solutions – especially in inkjet, imaging, and AI areas – will be important components of the success of the new Fuji Xerox.’
Jeff Jacobson, chief executive officer of Xerox, who will retain that role in the new Fuji Xerox, said, “The proposed combination has compelling industrial logic and will unlock significant growth and productivity opportunities for the combined company.’
The combined product offerings will make the new company a major vendor in print, with Fujifilm’s litho and flexo plates and prepress offerings, including digital imaging and colour management technology and the XMF workflow, complementing Xerox’s toner- and inkjet-based digital press line. There is very little overlap in press models; Fujifilm Graphic Systems (which is not included in the merger) in the UK at least has resold Xerox toner presses for a decade or so and the JetPress 720S B2 inkjet press has no direct equivalent in the Xerox range; neither do the rebadged Océ Arizona UV flatbed wide-format printers sold under the Fujifilm Acuity brand or the 3.2m roll-fed Acuity model. Xerox sold its FreeFlow Print Server software to EFI a year ago so that all Xerox digital presses would be driven by the latter’s Fiery digital front-ends, though other parts of the FreeFlow software portfolio were retained; how and if these will be integrated with the Fujifilm XMF platform remains to be seen.
