[THE INVESTOR] Tech giant Samsung Electronics announced on Sept. 12 that it would sell its printer business unit to HP Inc. for US$1.05 billion.

At a board meeting which approved the sell-off plan, it was decided to first divest the printer business arm on Nov. 11 and later hand over the entire shares of the firm to HPI.




“With the sale of the business, Samsung will put more focus on growing flagship businesses, and HPI will be able to cement its lead as the No.1 printer maker in the global market,” Samsung said in a statement.

Yoon Boo-keun, the chief executive of Samsung’s consumer electronics division, said that “Samsung proceeded the deal with HPI as the US firm highly evaluated Samsung’s printer business unit.”

The CEO also cited “a continued revenue slowdown,” as the main reason of the sell-off.

The sales, manufacturing, and development departments of the printer business unit will belong to the spin-off company, but the human resources department will remain at the Korean tech giant.

Samsung's printing business, which has 6,000 employees at a production base in China as well as more than 50 sales offices globally, posted 2 trillion won in revenue in 2015.

The tech giant said the deal will be completed within a year.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)