Japan’s Canon Inc said it plans to buy security camera maker Axis AB for about 23.6 billion Swedish crowns ($2.83 billion) to expand into the surveillance products market amid weak sales of its cameras. Canon said it was launching a tender offer to buy all of Axis shares.
The Swedish company said its board of directors unanimously supported the offer.
Canon already sells surveillance cameras and sees it as a growing market, although it has not disclosed how much it earns from such products. The deal comes after Canon late last month reported a slight increase in its fourth-quarter profit, as a weaker yen and rising sales of office equipment offset weakness in its camera division.
Axis reported a fourth-quarter operating profit of 199 million crowns, slightly below analysts’ forecasts but up from 166 million a year ago. Around half of its sales come from the Americas, 40 percent from Europe, the Middle East and Africa and the rest in Asia.
