[Astro-Baby]

Its interesting to note that most mergers do not produce a good outcome for either party. Generally the weaker party dilutes the stronger. In many cases divergent cultures cause problems which can destroy both parties.
Commercial operations are like trees, they start as seeds, grow to saplings, are at the mercy of the elements and nature, some grow to mighty oaks and can weather storms but eventually like any organic system they come to an end. Sometimes they rot out from inside. Sometimes they take a hit of lightning and sometimes the entire forest burns down.
If you look at most corporations they seldom get very old. even if the name is the same operationally they are a very different thing.

[yucatanPentax]

Its interesting to note that most mergers do not produce a good outcome for either party. Generally the weaker party dilutes the stronger. In many cases divergent cultures cause problems which can destroy both parties.
Commercial operations are like trees, they start as seeds, grow to saplings, are at the mercy of the elements and nature, some grow to mighty oaks and can weather storms but eventually like any organic system they come to an end. Sometimes they rot out from inside. Sometimes they take a hit of lightning and sometimes the entire forest burns down.
If you look at most corporations they seldom get very old. even if the name is the same operationally they are a very different thing.

This is very true. Many studies have shown that corporate mergers only rarely increase the value beyond both companies separately. What I conclude by that is that CEOs and Boards pursue mergers as a means of personal enrichment. There are typically generous golden parachutes paid to departing executives and nice bonuses paid out to top executives and board members upon completion of a merger. These are often tens of millions, which is a nice personal motivation to destroy companies valued in the high hundreds of millions or billions.

I worked for a quite large corporation for many years. Once the long-term CEO changed, the widely praised "modern" new CEO set upon merger after merger. Over and over, the purchased companies were never worth the added value paid. In fact, several were sold off after a handful of years at a huge loss (buy for $3 billion, sell for $1.25 billion type of results).

There's no world in which that is rational. The stock price of the company hasn't appreciated even in raw terms over 20 years. The real dollar value of the stock has depreciated after accounting for inflation. And yet they just completed another merger --- in an area where they have no expertise or talent --- and will soon sell a previous acquisition at a 50% loss.

Thank goodness for retirement!

I'm hoping that Ricoh has good long-term plans for Pentax and that they'll continue to invest a fair portion of their capital into their niche company. It seems that history may mean a little more in Japan than in the US. Their investment in bringing out the K-1 and K-1ii is much appreciated.

[JPT]

As we know, the Asahi Optical Company was founded in 1919 and became famous in the fifties for the Pentax 35mm SLR. Over the years Pentax went from a model to a brand in its own right. Some time after the millennium Hoya bought out Pentax, but we don't talk about that.

My question is, where did AOCO go and where is it now? The windows on my '07 Lexus are branded Asahi and I have always wondered about that. Some internet sleuthing has brought up more questions than answers.

There is Asahi Spectra:

Then there is Asahi Lite Optical:

Confused yet? There is also Asahi Optics Limited:



Finally, there is Asahi Group Holdings but they have a different kind of product:

ASAHI GROUP HOLDINGS

At this stage I gave up. I am now confused, a little depressed and in need of one the above beverages. Will the real Asahi Optical Company (or the rightful heirs thereof) please step forward?

It would seem that Ricoh Imaging still has the right to use the AOCO logo. They have been using it for promotional stickers that they hand out at events in the last couple of years. Also, the KP J-limited edition has the AOCO logo printed on the prism hump.

The glass in your car window is made by Asahi Glass Company. They are the biggest producer of glass for windows in Japan and they have no relation or shared origins with Pentax/Ricoh as far as I know. They just went through a rebranding to AGC, so I guess in future car windows will have AGC branding. Company ? AGC

There is also the beverage company, a TV channel called Asahi, The Asahi newspaper and an almost endless number of companies called Asahi in Japan. "Asa" means morning and "hi" means sun. So it basically means "rising sun", quite emblematic of Japan. On my 10-minute walk to the station I walk past the premises of Asahi Dry Cleaning and Asahi Real Estate. It's the same in every town in Japan.

[Mistral75]

It would seem that Ricoh Imaging still has the right to use the AOCO logo. They have been using it for promotional stickers that they hand out at events in the last couple of years. Also, the KP J-limited edition has the AOCO logo printed on the prism hump.

(...)

According to some research I've made in the World Intellectual Property Organization's Global Brand Database the AOCo logo should be in the public domain since the mid-1980s.

[Wasp]

Thanks for all the input! I didn't know that Asahi meant "rising sum." That explains all the businesses that bears the name. It seems that the AOCO logo of days gone by is now stored in a cupboard at the Ricoh HQ and will only makes very occasional appearances in future.

I have a suspicion that the other Asahis in the optics business were somewhat opportunistic in their choice of brand name. Riding on the coat tails of AOCO as it were, but that's just the way it is. The oldest one has been around for forty years.

[Wheatfield]

I wonder what the Pentax board saw in the deal that was so terrible that they'd prefer to fail a merger.

Hoya made no bones about not wanting the photographic imaging division. They wanted the medical imaging division and nothing else. This wasn't acceptable to Pentax, who wanted an all or nothing deal, as they knew that if the company was broken up the way Hoya wanted to break the company up, the Pentax camera brand would not survive.

I'm really happy that Ricoh is apparently maintaining core Pentax values while incorporating interesting Ricoh tech.
I'll say "Ricoh saved Pentax"!

Hoya wasn't the White Knight that they could have been, but they did just enough to keep the brand viable until a buyer was found. At the same time, they sucked the life out of Pentax by dropping any pretext at having quality control on what they were sending out. The Hoya years were rife with QC complaints from customers. The SDM debacle landed at their feet, though the original sin started with Pentax trying to overcontrol costs, the K5 and it's many, many failings, to the point many K5s were little more than paperweights even when working, is 100% Hoya cheaping out as much as possible.
Ricoh at least wanted the camera brand, and bought it for a fire sale price. They have been pretty slow about developing the brand, but they are, at least, adults in the room. The Ricoh originated product seems to be very good quality.

[FozzFoster]

Hoya made no bones about not wanting the photographic imaging division.

I've heard this as well. Interesting how corporate culture is so different between Western and Japanese companies.
Honour needs to be considered and it seems the Pentax board were proud of their brand and wanted to continue development.
For me, it seems, that capitalism would dictate that as long as your stakeholders make bank there is little to consider towards what the purchaser decides to do with their purchase haha I'm no MBA.

but they did just enough to keep the brand viable until a buyer was found.

This is an interesting perspective, and you are probably accurate.
My initial thoughts while reading your comments were contrary; they did more than 'just' enough to keep the brand viable:
They expanded the lineup, they developed the Q system, the 645 system, they released frequent aps-c cameras, they implemented weather sealing, they rumored full frame camera early and even released full frame lenses...
but on second thought... that may all just have been bolstering the resume of the company before intended sell off.. if they didn't bolster to some extent then resale wouldn't be as viable.

Interesting I've never heard of the many failings of the K-5. Mine is still clickin' just fine. Care to elaborate?

The Ricoh originated product seems to be very good quality.

I entirely agree. Ricoh products are impressive and leading in their field. I'm very excited to see what they have in store for Pentax!

[Wheatfield]

Interesting I've never heard of the many failings of the K-5. Mine is still clickin' just fine. Care to elaborate?

Go here:
Pentax K-5 - PentaxForums.com
and start working backwards from the first page, something like page 131.
It doesn't take long to find out people were having very real problems with the auto focus, and as time went on, buttons and dials started failing, or falling out of the camera entirely in the case of the lens release button. Some of the early cameras were afflicted with stains on the sensors (admittedly a Sony issue, but I suspect Hoya wasn't paying for quality control from Sony), and on and on.

My own K5 wasn't afflicted by a stained sensor, and it held on to all of it's buttons and dials, but it had serious AF problems, bad enough that I was only able to use AF in good daylight conditions. I was doing a lot of studio photography at the time, and the K5 was pretty much useless unless using live view and facial recognition, which while slow, was at least fairly accurate.

The K5 and it's problems eventually drove me to the Fuji ecosystem for no other reason than I wanted a camera that worked as intended.
My understanding is that later K5s did sort out most of the issues that the early ones suffered with.