By Sam Nussey
TOKYO (Reuters) -Germany’s United Robotics Group said on Tuesday it will acquire SoftBank Group Corp’s Paris-based robotics unit SoftBank Robotics Europe, which developed the humanoid Pepper robot for the Japanese conglomerate.
SoftBank will acquire a minority stake in URG and the two companies will continue to cooperate in marketing robots, the statement said without providing further financial terms of the deal.
The French business will revert to its former name Aldebaran. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son acquired the business in 2012 in a short-circuited attempt to become a major player in the robotics industry.
Reuters previously reported SoftBank was in talks to sell the business to URG after stopping production of Pepper and slashing jobs at its robotics business globally.
The deal, which follows the appointment of URG as master distributor for Pepper in Europe in October last year, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2022.
(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Stephen Coates and Christopher Cushing)
