Majority of directors of Xerox leaves and deal with Fujifilm may not go through

The director of Xerox and six members of the board are leaving after a judge ruled that the deal could temporarily not go through. A new board of directors will look into whether Xerox still wants to merge into a joint venture with Fujifilm.

The departure of some of the board counts as a victory for the shareholders who oppose the deal; the departure is part of an agreement with those shareholders. They felt that Xerox was not getting enough money to go into a joint venture in which Fujifilm would have a majority stake. Xerox and Fujifilm announced the $6.1 billion deal earlier this year.

It seems unlikely that the deal with Fujifilm will go through unaltered. The new board will immediately reconsider the terms of the deal. Fujifilm has not yet commented on the developments at Xerox.

Fujifilm and Xerox have been working together for a long time. The Fuji Xerox joint venture, of which Fujifilm had 75 percent of the shares, has been in existence since 1962 and mainly operates in the Asian market. Under the new arrangement, Fujifilm would own 50.1 percent of the shares of the new joint venture, while Xerox’s existing shareholders will receive 49.9 percent. The joint venture would become the market leader in the global printer market.