Panasonic and SANYO Electric Co., Ltd., upon the resolutions of the meetings of their respective Boards of Directors held on November 7, 2008, agreed to start discussions for a capital and business alliance between Panasonic and Sanyo.

"Panasonic has been challenging under the "Panasonic" brand to generate "ideas for life" for the future. On the other hand, SANYO has been seeking to become a "Leading provider of Environment- and Energy-related products". Through this capital and business alliance based on the premise of making SANYO a subsidiary of Panasonic, we aim to share both companies' management know-how and business resources while collaborating with each other, thereby creating a global competitive foundation which will maximize corporate values of both Panasonic and SANYO and bring benefit for both companies' shareholders and all other stakeholders, including customers and employees," the companies said in a statement.

In the Energy Business Domain, both Panasonic and SANYO will be able to utilize their complementary technology by cooperating with each other in order for both companies to contribute to the development of the rechargeable battery market as well as its provision of global sales networks in order to expand SANYO's solar and energy businesses. In the Electronics Business Domain and the Ecology Business Domain, the companies plan to expand the range of products and mutually utilize each other's sales channels, in each of the digital, commercial, device and white goods businesses included in these domains.

Moreover, the companies are expected to reduce the production and development cost through technical collaboration.

Considering the above, Panasonic and SANYO said that they would immediately set up a project team, to start intensive discussion on the capital and business alliance between both companies based on the premise of making SANYO a subsidiary of Panasonic, keeping a variety of options in mind.

"We aim to maximize corporate values of both Panasonic and SANYO to bring benefit for both companies' shareholders and all other stakeholders including customers and employees," the companies said.

Progress of the discussions between both companies will be announced at around the end of December 2008.