TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese office equipment maker Ricoh Co Ltd (7752.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said it plans to buy back about 15-20 billion yen ($146-$194 million) worth of its own shares each year to boost shareholder returns and prepare for acquisitions.
Ricoh Chief Executive Shiro Kondo told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in Tokyo that he aimed to bring its North and South America business back to profitability in the current business year to March 2009, encouraged by a strong showing there last month.
Ricoh, which competes with the likes of Xerox Corp (XRX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Canon (7751.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) in copiers and printers, posted an operating loss in the region in the past two quarters as the economy faltered and it struggled through a merger of its sales arms.
"America did well in April but it is too early to let our guard down with optimism that those conditions will continue," Kondo said. "At the very least we want to bring it back into the black this financial year."
Ricoh bought back about 15 billion yen worth of its own shares in the past business year ended March 31, and Kondo said the company would look to buy its shares back at about the same pace each year going forward.
"I would expect us to do about 15-20 billion worth a year," he said, adding that Ricoh could use the shares it buys back from the market as a currency for future acquisitions.
Ricoh announced earlier this month that it would buy out minority shareholders in subsidiary Ricoh Elemex Corp 7765.T through a stock swap using its treasury shares.
Kondo said he had no plans to take similar action with Ricoh Leasing (8566.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), another listed subsidiary in which it owns a little under 47 percent. "We are not at all thinking of making it a wholly-owned unit," he said.
Like other copier and printer makers, Ricoh is looking for ways to strengthen its business of offering document management and other services to companies to complement its mainstay operations of selling and maintaining office machines.
Kondo mentioned Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) recently announced plans to buy technology outsourcing company Electronic Data Systems Corp EDS.N as an example of the direction in which his industry was moving.
"It will probably become increasingly difficult to grow without IT network services," Kondo said.
(For summit blog: summitnotebook.reuters.com/)
(Reporting by Nathan Layne and Noriyuki Hirata; Editing by Louise Heavens)
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