Already the owner of the Verbatim brand, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co., Ltd. (MKM) now acquires Freecom BV.
Founded in 1989, Freecom designs, makes and markets desktop and mobile storage solutions, NAS devices, media players, internet radios, flash drives, DVD burners and pro tape drives.
The stock-funded acquisition includes all of Freecom’s physical assets, patents, trademarks, technology, engineering, sales and marketing expertise. The purchase price was not disclosed.
The new owners say, "The Freecom acquisition represents yet another investment made by the MKM/Verbatim group aimed at the growing external hard disk drive (HDD) market. The asset acquisition of SmartDisk, made in June 2007, has proved successful in establishing MKM/Verbatim in both the portable and desktop external HDD markets on a global basis. By leveraging the strength of the Verbatim brand and channel relationships in the worldwide removable storage markets, the MKM/Verbatim external HDD business has grown more than 600 percent during the past two years."
With more than 20 years in the market, Freecom is an industry pioneer in easy-to-use external storage and a known European storage brand, holding many key distribution and retail partnerships throughout Europe. Collectively, Verbatim and Freecom will capitalize on geographic and channel synergies that may allow them to squeeze out competitors and gain market share.
MKM expects both Verbatim and Freecom businesses will be strengthened by improvement in economies of scale related to procurement, manufacturing and logistics. Both businesses could benefit from collaborative product development and marketing efforts that position both brands while reducing time to market for new storage solutions.
“The acquisition of Freecom brings together two of the industry's strongest removable storage brands,” says Shigenori Otsuka, president of MKM. “It accelerates MKM’s strategic initiative to fuel growth in the external storage category, strengthens our combined global market leadership positions and generates opportunities for growth in new markets. We’re especially pleased in the complementary positioning of the Verbatim and Freecom brands and the collaborative spirit that we see having brought this new company into the MKM/Verbatim group.”
Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co., Ltd. MKM’s parent company, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC), is one of the largest chemical companies in Japan. Verbatim was founded in 1969 in California and in 1990, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, (still Mitsubishi Kasei Corporation at the time) the parent company of Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co., Ltd., purchased Verbatim.