NEW DELHI/TOKYO (Reuters) – Hero Group will buy Honda Motor’s entire 26 percent stake in their Honda motorcycle venture Hero Honda Motors, paving the way for the Japanese firm to focus on its wholly-owned Indian unit.

Financial details of the deal, announced on Thursday after months of media reports, were not disclosed.

NEW DELHI/TOKYO (Reuters) – The Hero Group will buy Honda Motor’s entire 26 percent stake in their Honda motorcycle venture Hero Honda Motors, paving the way for the Japanese firm to focus on its wholly-owned Indian unit.

Financial details of the deal, announced on Thursday after months of media reports, were not disclosed.

NEW DELHI/TOKYO (Reuters) – Honda Motor (7267.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) has “formally decided” to sell its entire stake in India’s Hero Honda (HROH.BO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Nikkei reported on Thursday, paving the way for the Japanese firm to focus on its wholly-owned Indian unit.

Honda’s 26 percent stake in Hero Honda, which was formed in 1984, has a market value of nearly $2 billion.

NEW DELHI /TOKYO, Dec 16 (Reuters) – Honda Motor
has “formally decided” to sell its entire stake in
India’s Hero Honda , Nikkei reported on Thursday,
paving the way for the Japanese firm to focus on its
wholly-owned Indian unit.
Honda’s 26 percent stake in Hero Honda, which
was formed in 1984, has a market value of nearly $2 billion.

Selling out of the venture would give the Japanese company
the freedom to go it alone in the world’s second-largest
market for two-wheelers, where it is building its second
wholly-owned motorcycle plant.

TOKYO/MUMBAI (Reuters) – Japan’s Honda Motor and India’s Hero Group are in discussions to review the structure of their joint venture, Hero Honda Motors, India’s top seller of motorcycles.

Speculation has swirled since summer that Honda, the world’s biggest motorcycle maker, would reduce its 26 percent stake in the 26-year-old venture to focus its energy on wholly owned unit Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India, set up in 1999.

TOKYO/MUMBAI, Dec 16 (Reuters) – Japan’s Honda Motor
and India’s Hero Group are in discussions to review
the structure of their joint venture, Hero Honda Motors
, India’s top seller of motorcycles.

Speculation has swirled since summer that Honda, the
world’s biggest motorcycle maker, would reduce its 26 percent
stake in the 26-year-old venture to focus its energy on wholly
owned unit Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India, set up in 1999.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Nissan Motor Co (7201.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Mitsubishi Motors Corp (7211.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said they would deepen their operational ties to make better use of their resources as a strong yen makes competing tougher for Japanese automakers.

Nissan and Mitsubishi, Japan’s No.3 and No.6 automakers in 2009, have been working together since 2003, mainly involving Mitsubishi Motors’ building 660cc minivehicles under Nissan’s badge in Japan.

TOKYO, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Back in university, Tatsuo
Higuchi never imagined Otsuka Holdings would become a
major global player. Now, the CEO of the Japanese
pharmaceutical and food group is overseeing the drug sector’s
largest-ever IPO.

A $2.4 billion initial public offering, global expansion,
looming patent expirations on key products. These would be
challenges for any corporate leader. Yet Higuchi’s career
across a broad swathe of company businesses has prepared him
well for the job, say those who know him.

TOKYO, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd (7270.T: Quote, Profile, Research)
is still aiming for an operating profit of 80 billion yen ($960
million) as originally planned four years ago, instead of the 70
billion yen officially forecast for this year, its chief
executive said.

Fuji Heavy, the maker of Subaru cars, is in its final year of
a four-year business plan crafted in 2007, when the company had
projected an operating profit of 80 billion yen assuming a far
more favourable dollar rate of 110 yen.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Nissan Motor Co will stop building the Rogue in Japan at the crossover’s next remodeling around 2013, transferring output of one of its most popular U.S. vehicles to reduce exposure to the yen, an executive with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The Rogue is made at Nissan’s 430,000 units-a-year Kyushu factory in southern Japan, and is the brand’s best-selling light truck in the United States.