Panasonic Corp. sold its entire stake in Tesla Inc. last fiscal year, the Japanese business daily Nikkei reported Friday.
Panasonic
6752,
+4.53%,
which builds lithium batteries for Tesla, reportedly sold all of its Tesla shares by the end of March for an estimated $3.88 billion. A Panasonic executive told Nikkei that its business relationship with Tesla will not change.
The Japanese company reportedly bought about 1.4 million shares of Tesla
TSLA,
+3.54%
in 2010, at a price of $21.15 apiece. Tesla shares sold for $667 on March 31, after falling as low as $563 a share in mid-March.
Panasonic announced it was buying U.S.-based supply-chain software company Blue Yonder in April for $7.1 billion, and earlier this month Panasonic North America announced a lithium-production collaboration with Schlumberger New Energy.
Panasonic shares traded in Tokyo are up 9.6% year to date, and up 39% over the past year; Tesla shares are down 3.7% this year but up 245% over the past 12 months.
