Toshiba to acquire additional shares of Korea's Unison

Toshiba Corp has reinforced its renewable energy business by signing a share purchase agreement with Unison Co Ltd, Korea's leading manufacturer of wind power equipment. Toshiba will acquire 3.53 million newly issued Unison shares.

Separately, Toshiba said it has also signed an agreement to purchase 2.909 million shares of Unison from the company's current shareholders.

In May 2011, Toshiba entered into a strategic business alliance with Unison and subsequently purchased convertible bonds issued by the Korean firm with a face value of 40 billion won. Converting these to common stock, taking up the allocation of new stock and executing the stock purchase from current shareholders will allow Toshiba to acquire 34% shares of Unison, with a total value of 84.3 billion won (6.2 billion yen), and to become the company's largest shareholder.

Unison is Korea's longest established wind power equipment manufacturer and has technologies for highly durable direct drive generators that employ a permanent magnet synchronous generator with no gears. Unison is known for its strength in manufacturing competitive products and has a total annual production capacity equivalent to 1,000MW. The company has the top share in the Korean market among Korean makers.

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