Sharp Corp. is considering moving its headquarters to a plant in Osaka Prefecture, jointly operated with Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., which has agreed to take over the struggling electronics maker, sources close to the matter said Wednesday.
The envisaged relocation within the prefecture from the city of Osaka to Sakai is designed to strengthen coordination with Hon Hai, an Apple Inc. supplier better known by its trade name Foxconn as Sharp aims to become profitable again.
Hon Hai signed an agreement in April to make Sharp the first major Japanese tech company to come under foreign ownership. The liquid crystal display manufacturing plant in Sakai has been operated by the two companies since 2012.
In a related move, Sharp is mulling moving part of the functions at its branch office in Tokyo to its own building in nearby Chiba Prefecture to reduce costs, the sources said.
Sharp sold its head office buildings in Osaka to furniture retail chain operator Nitori Holdings Co. and a Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. group company as part of its restructuring plan. The Osaka-based company has been paying rent to keep the functions of its headquarters there.
Sharp's leasing contracts will expire at the end of March 2018, but the company is now aiming to move out around this summer in the face of its worsening financial standing, the sources said.
Hurt by losses in its LCD business, Sharp is likely to have been in the red for the second straight year in fiscal 2015 that ended in March.