The head office of Panasonic Corp. in Osaka Prefecture. (Mainichi)

       OSAKA (Kyodo) -- Panasonic Corp. had sold its entire stake in U.S. electric vehicle giant Tesla Inc. by March for about 400 billion yen ($3.6 billion) to invest the proceeds in growth areas, a company official revealed Friday.

       Panasonic supplies lithium-ion batteries to Tesla. The Japanese company said the sellout did not impact their cooperative ties and it maintains a good business relationship with the EV maker.

       The company has been Tesla's supplier since 2009 and invested about 2.4 billion yen in the automaker in 2010. Tesla shares held by Panasonic were estimated to be worth 80.8 billion yen in total, according to Panasonic's financial report for fiscal 2019.

       A recent surge in Tesla shares has expanded its market capitalization as EVs have drawn attention amid growing efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

       Panasonic is expected to utilize the proceeds from the sellout for purposes such as the acquisition of U.S. software firm Blue Yonder Group Inc.

       The Japanese electronics maker said in April it has decided to make the software firm a wholly owned subsidiary to strengthen its logistics business by artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.

       Panasonic said in May it expects its net profit to rise 27.2 percent to 210 billion yen in the current business year through next March, helped by growth in its automotive segment that supplies EV batteries to Tesla.

       Font Size S M L Print Timeline 0