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The
comment marks a shift in focus for the chipmaker after five
years of costly restructuring which culminated in its first net
profit since its 2010 inception. It also comes at a time of
automakers seeking to add increasingly sophisticated features.
Renesas holds 10.5 percent of a $30 billion market for chips
that appear throughout vehicles, in critical areas such as
engines to frills like assisted parking, according to Gartner.
But it will be overtaken after NXP Semiconductors NV and
Freescale Semiconductor Ltd merge.
"As the semiconductor industry consolidates in pursuit of scale,
we want to be a proactive rather than a passive player," Chief
Financial Officer Hidetoshi Shibata said in an interview.
"We have over 300 billion yen ($2.43 billion) in cash to fund
potential acquisitions and can also procure several hundred
billion yen from the market or banks," he said. "We are not
thinking small."
Renesas posted its first profit in the business year through
March 2015 after restructuring that involved halving its
workforce, shutting plants and selling non-core businesses to
concentrate on the automotive sector.
"The combination (of NXP and Freescale) will be a threat to us,
but we will also expand to exceed it in scale," said Shibata.
Renesas has been widely seen as a possible acquisition target as
its largest shareholder, government-backed fund Innovation
Network Corp of Japan (INCJ), is no longer obliged to hold onto
its shares.
INCJ rescued a cash-strapped Renesas in 2013 with a 150 billion
yen investment giving it 69 percent of the chipmaker, with the
proviso it hold onto the stake for two years. That lock-up
expired at the end of September.
"Discussions (with INCJ) are always there," Shibata said about
whether, when and to whom INCJ will sell. Shibata was INCJ
executive managing director before joining Renesas in 2013.
INCJ, under the terms of its 2009 establishment, will be
dissolved by 2024.
Renesas was created in 2010 from a merger of NEC Corp's chip
division and Renesas Technology, which itself was established
through a merger of the chip units of Hitachi Ltd and Mitsubishi
Electric Corp.
(Additional reporting by Reiji Murai; Editing by Christopher
Cushing)
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