"Today we announced the exciting news that IKON is to be acquired by Ricoh Company, Ltd., subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. A copy of the press release we issued is attached for your information. As you know, Ricoh has been one of our valued equipment partners for many years and we are thrilled that we will now be joining forces with them to create a stronger global office solutions competitor.
Let me explain why we chose to take this important step. As our Board and management looked at the future of our company, we focused on how going forward we could best meet our customers’ needs, deliver value to our shareholders and create opportunities for our employees. We decided that, like many of our competitors, we would be better able to achieve these goals as part of a larger organization that was able to offer a full range of end-to-end office solutions and services to more customers across the globe.
We believe that as part of a combined company in the highly competitive and evolving office equipment industry, we can leverage our sales, service and marketing depth with Ricoh’s engineering and manufacturing expertise to better understand and more rapidly respond to the needs of our customers. In addition, we anticipate that this transaction will create new opportunities for our employees, as you will be working for a larger organization with enhanced growth prospects.
The unmatched expertise and strong skills of IKON’s people were a significant reason why Ricoh wanted to acquire IKON and they are very much looking forward to working with our team.
Following the completion of the transaction, Ricoh intends to operate IKON as an independent subsidiary and has no immediate plans to merge or consolidate the organizations or to make any changes as a result of this transaction. Of course, we will remain committed to serving all our customers and we have every intention of continuing to provide them with world-class service and support, regardless of the equipment they use.
While we are very excited about today’s news, it is important for you to know that it will take several months to complete this transaction. In the meantime, it will be business as usual for us. We anticipate that the transaction will close before the end of calendar year 2008. From now until then, it is critical that we all stay focused on selling, servicing and meeting the needs of our customers, and achieving our objectives to finish the fiscal year strong...
...I’d like to end by thanking you for your continued hard work and dedication to IKON. It is your contributions that have made our company an attractive partner for Ricoh and I am confident that if we all can continue to focus on what we do best, we will all have a very bright future to look forward to as part of the new Ricoh.
Matt"
Here is the Press Release.
From someone close to the matter it's safe to say that people within IKON are absolutely freaking out about this deal. Ricoh is a good company but losing Canon is a blow that may cripple IKON. There are way too many gaps in the Ricoh product line. Stay tuned on this one. Expect massive IKON defections to Canon distributors willing and ready to take down the bloated IKON behemoth.
ReplyDeleteUnderstood.
ReplyDeleteThis is a day.
Buzzzzzzzz all over.
Employees stunned - and even though there is really no surprise this is still very significant.
And yes, oh so much more to come between now and year's end...