JAPANESE FIRM BUYS HP's VANCOVER CANADA CAMPUS

[Anonymous]

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_hewlett_packard.html
Japanese firm buys HP Vancouver campus
VANCOUVER,
Wash. — The parent corporation of SEH America has bought
Hewlett-Packard’s eastern Vancouver campus for $55 million.The
Shin-Etsu Handotai Group bought the property with a market value of
$51.15 million, the Vancouver Columbian newspaper reported. It consists
of 174 acres, four buildings and 694,000 square feet of spaceMayor
Royce Pollard declined to speculate on how many jobs SEH could create
at its new site, except to say “probably in the hundreds.””This is the
brass ring we have been reaching for to keep our local community
thriving and vital,” Pollard told The Columbian. “It says something
about us when a successful, international company like SEH America
chooses our city for its future growth.”The sale, recorded Friday, is
another step in HP’s gradual departure from Vancouver, where 30 years
ago, its engineers invented the company’s hot-selling line of inkjet
printers.Inkjet printers boosted HP sales throughout the 1980s and
1990s when HP’s Vancouver work force peaked at 3,500. Printer
manufacturing was moved to Malaysia in 1999.

HP’s Vancouver work force now is estimated at about 600.
The
deal represents the latest investment decision by SEH and its Japanese
parent corporation to expand manufacturing in Vancouver.Shin-Etsu is
the world’s largest supplier of semiconductor materials and silicon
from plants around the globe, with annual sales of $12.25 billion.SEH’s
customers include Intel Corp. and Texas Instruments. Its nonconductive
wafers are used to make computer chips, mobile phones and other
electronic devices.In February Pollard and City Manager Pat McDonnell
quietly visited Tokyo to meet officials at the Shin-Etsu Handotai Group
and its parent corporation, Shin-Etsu Chemical.

[Author]

June 30, 2009 at 12:04 PM