It can be said that Hitachi Metals' acquisition of Sumitomo Special Metals failed as it had been a concern from the beginning. This can be said because I have seen rare earth sintered magnets for 30 years since the Sumitomo Special Metals era. At that time, as a securities analyst, I was looking at Sumitomo Special Metals and Hitachi Metals as follow-up stocks. (Logo quoted from Yahoo's image)
However, in 2003, a comprehensive business alliance between Hitachi Metals and Sumitomo Special Metals and the transfer of Sumitomo Special Metals shares from Sumitomo Metals (currently Nippon Steel) to Hitachi Metals (https://www.hitachi-metals.co.jp/press/pdf/2003/n030620.pdf） has been removed from the recommendation to buy Sumitomo Metals.
The reason is that it was decided that the 4th place in Japan could not control the 1st place in the world. In addition, by changing from the Sumitomo Group to the Hitachi Group, when considering who will take over the management rights, it is highly likely that Hitachi will take over.
In 2004, Sumitomo Special Metals integrated the magnetic materials division of Hitachi Metals, changed its name to NEOMAX, and merged with Hitachi Metals in 2007.
Sumitomo Special Metals around the year 2000 was a stable source of income with a high operating profit margin of about 50%, accounting for 100% of the world market share in the open type (permanent magnet type) of MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) for medical use.
In addition, the drive motors after the Prius that appeared in 1997 (Honda's first Civic Hybrid seems to have adopted TDK, which has been in business for a long time, because the drive motor was SPM (Surface Magnet Motor) *). The 100% Sumitomo Special Metal rare earth magnet was adopted, and the operating profit margin was stable at about 20%.
Keeping an operating profit margin of 20% for automobiles was a very unusual event at that time. Even though Toyota does not produce magnets, it had to rely on Sumitomo Special Metals, so it seems that it recognized a high profit margin including development costs.
* The image of Honda's hybrid car at that time was to support the gasoline engine, so there was a limit to the number of revolutions of the engine. However, Honda also switched to IPM (interior permanent magnet) similar to Toyota, and switched from TDK to Sumitomo special metal magnet.)
When Hitachi Metals took control, the production of rare earth magnets was concentrated at the Kumagaya Plant (Hitachi Metals), and former Sumitomo Special Metals engineers were sent to local factories (actually, an engineer wrote papers on rare earth magnets was flew to Kyushu ...). In other words, it has become the losing group of Hitachi Metals production methods for rare earth magnets.
Perhaps because Hitachi took the initiative, Hitachi Medical Corporation was working on the open type of MRI, so the guillotine type (superconductor) GM launched a low price offensive, and the open type MRI market shrank rapidly. It is a big loss because the profit margin was so high.
The next thing that hit Hitachi Metals was the appearance of the Kruger Hariya hybrid car. First of all, Shin-Etsu Chemical provided Toyota's drive motors for the first time, breaking Hitachi Metals' monopoly in Toyota's drive motors.
It seems that Toyota learned that even if the performance of rare earth magnets is slightly inferior, it can be covered by increasing the voltage. In fact, the Kluger-Harrier hybrid car has adopted a new booster, and since then Toyota's hybrid car has adopted Shin-Etsu Chemical's rare earth magnets instead of Hitachi Metals.
Hitachi Metals has been competing in price, lowering its profitability, and impairing it, probably because of its share recovery. Hitachi Metals further widened the gap by the grain boundary diffusion alloy method invented by Shin-Etsu Chemical in the 2011’s (since the 2003 Senkaku Islands issue, research to reduce the use of expensive heavy rare earths has been carried out, and the grain boundary Invented the diffusion alloy method).
This seems to have been a big turning point. I think that Shin-Etsu Chemical has solidified the reason why Hitachi Metals has taken the place in hybrid cars.
It seems that a considerable decision is required to regain the top position in the industry for rare earth magnets from Hitachi Metals.
（IRuniverse / Yasushi Inoue）
