Canon acquires Toshiba Medical

Canon has acquired Toshiba Medical Systems, a subsidiary of Toshiba, with a bid of more than 700 billion yen ($6.21 billion). 

The firm was granted preferential negotiating rights by Toshiba's board this afternoon (March 9th), with limited overlap between the two companies' operations expected to lead to smooth antitrust proceedings.

Toshiba has chosen to sell its medical unit in order to rebuild its finances and invest in growth sectors following a major accounting scandal.

Alongside Canon, UK investment fund Permira and Fujifilm Holdings and a coalition of Konica Minolta also took part in the second round of bidding for Toshiba Medical last Friday.

Canon has been looking for another revenue source to complement the camera and office equipment markets, and the firm sees medical equipment as a new priority field. It already offers medical products such as retinal cameras, and it is now looking to expand into diagnostic imaging equipment, such as CT scanners and MRI machines.