[Xinhua Times, February 24, according to Kyodo News Agency] Hitachi announced on the 24th that it will acquire the rolling stock and signaling business of Italy’s Finmeccanica Group. The acquisition amount may be around 250 billion yen (approximately RMB 13.16 billion), which is comparable to the amount Hitachi acquired the hard disk business of IBM (162.91, -0.74, -0.45%) in the United States in 2003.
Hitachi moved its railway business headquarters to the UK in April last year and will use its vehicle production and maintenance business in the UK as a selling point to expand overseas orders.
The annual sales revenue of Finmeccanica’s rolling stock division and signaling systems division are estimated to be approximately 70 billion yen and 170 billion yen respectively. Hitachi’s railway business sales revenue in fiscal 2013 was approximately 168.2 billion yen.
The top three companies in the global railway business are Canada’s Bombardier, Germany’s Siemens (132.69,0.00, 0.00%) and France’s Alstom. (over)