The Japanese film company has acquired an American staple in outdated copy services, dishing out a cool $6.1B for Xerox.
According to Axios, Xerox will become a subsidiary of Fujifilm under the name of their existing joint venture, Fuji Xerox, now making them a combined $18B company.
The end of an era
The Xerox name is synonymous with “printing” — and the company is one of the most influential innovators of the 20th century.
They first became famous for their ubiquitous copiers, but with the advance of technology and the notion of “hard-copy” feeling archaic, Xerox has struggled.
But this isn’t a eulogy: while this deal marks the loss of Xerox’s independence, Fujifilm is only taking an ownership of 50.1% — so they’ll still have a seat at the table.
The bottom line is, Fujifilm and Xerox both need each other in an “increasingly severe” market landscape. But that doesn’t mean they are completely dying…
They just have to do a little, ya know, ‘cutting’
An unfortunate byproduct of this merger: Fuji Xerox’s first focus will be on leaning its workforce.
According to Bloomberg, the joint venture will restructure the offices to make room for Xerox in Asia by cutting up to 10k jobs, as they look to speed up their revenue growth by global reach and continue to “pursue developments” in inkjet… and AI.