Pixiq

Well, well. Yesterday Hasselblad announced that it was changing owners. Today it’s Pentax’s turn. Uh-hmm. The Hoya Corporation, which bought Pentax in 2007, has announced that it is selling Pentax to Ricoh. That is, it’s selling the digital imaging chunk of Pentax to Ricoh. It’s keeping the bit that it really wanted from the 2007 purchase: medical technology.

Reuters reckons that the deal is worth about 10 billion yen. (That’s US$124.2 million.)

Pentax UK has said:

We are extremely pleased with today’s announcement and see this as the natural next step in the evolution and continued development of the Pentax brand in the UK and abroad. With Ricoh’s involvement we can continue to grow the Pentax business in the UK and ensure we maintain our commitment to provide our customers with innovative, cutting edge, high quality products to suit all camera users.

So Ricoh has got itself some more camera manufacturing technology and is hoping to be able to make in-roads into the consumer market with it. Question is, will Ricoh become Pentax, or Pentax become Ricoh?

(Initial headsup to Engadget and the Hoya PR is here.)

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