What is Y10bn, or $110m, between friends? It is not much to Samsung (net cash $21bn) and it is hardly a sufficient sum to save Sharp. But Wednesday’s announcement that Samsung will buy newly issued shares to the tune of 3 per cent of Sharp might give it a place in the pecking order should Sharp collapse.
A circling of vultures is not how the deal is presented. But Samsung is the third tech giant to put money into Sharp in the past year, after Qualcomm’s similar-sized equity investment in December and Hon Hai’s taking of a half-share in the Japanese group’s market-leading and lossmaking Sakai plant producing liquid crystal display screens. The three are not direct competitors, but that is a lot of big tech ego hovering around a company that admitted to material doubt over its survival as recently as November. Surely these investments cannot all be down to love and respect for a one-time market giant? Votes of confidence the injections may be, but they are not very big ones: the cash comes to less than 1 per cent of either Samsung’s or Qualcomm’s net funds. And the deals are also nowhere near enough to do more than briefly plug holes at Sharp. Qualcomm and Samsung’s combined Y20bn covers under half of Sharp’s cash burn in the first nine months of this financial year. And Hon Hai’s $800m came in the end without the equity stake that had been agreed. That in itself is a telling number – Hon Hai planned a year ago to pay Y70bn for 10 per cent of Sharp. Samsung and Qualcomm are in effect paying half of that amount.
The irony is that Samsung made its start in electronics in the 1970s producing black-and-white TVs with Sanyo and NEC while Sharp was working at the cutting edge. Lucky for Sharp, its technology is still there – Samsung also agreed a deal to take more of Sharp’s display screens – even if its business is not. This deal is not big enough to change much at Sharp or Samsung. But should the worst happen, a $100m claim may be a small price for an entrée to Sharp’s technology and, crucially, to block rivals.