I read about it recently and was a little stunned that I'd never heard this before ..
the news is a couple years old now .. just curious if others knew this ?
No, that's interesting. But in Japan all the big business conglomerates are owned by the same few families anyway so incestuous relationships tend to be the norm and not the exception.
Also, http://thebusinessoutlook.com/business-%E2%80%BA-sanyo-brand-name-to-be-basically-terminated-in-april-2012/505/
yes
Yes, air-conditioning biz also, Sanyo is a really good brand which was popular here in this region but dropped a lot. The brand will be terminated soon for most product lines. In my country, they do push out Panasonic Plasmas/LCDs. Not sure if the Panasonics you find in your country like USA is also from here.
Panasonic were also the makers of Technics 1200s (DJ turntables) as well as audio components. I owned 5 of these in my early DJ years. I guess today you can call them "iconic". I still have 2 of them as I personally still like to play with vinyl.
/goes to dig in the crates...
yes I knew