FedEx to Sell Office Unit’s Japan Business to Konica

FedEx Corp. (FDX) agreed to sell the Japanese operations of its Office unit, the retail business formerly known as Kinko’s, to Konica Minolta Holdings Inc. (4902)

The deal consists of 61 printing centers in Japan, Jess Bunn, a FedEx spokesman, said today in a telephone interview without giving a price. Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported earlier that Tokyo-based Konica would pay 8 billion yen ($100.5 million).

FedEx, the second-largest U.S. package-delivery company, stopped using the Kinko’s name and rebranded the division as FedEx Office in 2008. Memphis, Tennessee-based FedEx acquired Kinko’s Inc. in 2004 for $2.4 billion, adding storefront businesses selling office products and printing services.

Dropping the FedEx Kinko’s brand had a quarterly cost of $891 million to write down the value of that acquisition, the company said in 2008. A year later, FedEx reported $885 million in costs in its fiscal fourth quarter to write down the value of Kinko’s and the 2006 purchase of Watkins Motor Line.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brendan Case in Dallas at bcase4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at edufner@bloomberg.net