Originally posted by alamo5000
I don't know the history, but seems to me like Hoya is a poorly managed company overall. It shows in their numbers, what little I read...
If the Hoya takeover was hostile that's even more reason to rejoice regarding Ricoh. Hostiles rarely work out well---
A quick summary, from memory:
- Mr. Fumio Urano, then CEO at Pentax, and Mr. Hiroshi Suzuki, CEO Hoya, arranged together that Pentax and Hoya should merge and form a new company, Hoya Pentax HD.
- the Pentax board is presented an already made deal, on which they apparently didn't had prior knowledge. However, instead of accepting they would reject it - going as far as replacing Mr. Fumio Urano.
- a fight for control over Pentax occurs, the Pentax board and their new CEO trying to keep Pentax (probably encouraged by the K10D's success), by showing to their shareholders plans that would allow them to proceed on their own.
- unfortunately, a major shareholder - Sparx - wants to sell; using their influence to force other shareholders and the board to go their way.
- in light of such strong shareholder activism, the Pentax board had to accept Hoya's tender proposal; thus, Hoya finally buys Pentax.