• Wall Street Journal June 22, 2006 NEC Corp.

NEC Corp. said it is considering selling a stake in its Packard Bell BV unit, based in the Netherlands, in what may lead to a withdrawal by the Japanese electronics giant from the home-use personeal-computer business in Europe. An NEC spokeman said there has been an offer in Europe regarding the sale of the stake. The Nihon Keizai business daily reported that NEC is talking with Lap Shun Hui, co-founder of eMachines, a maker of low-cost PCs that has since been bought by Gateway Inc., about selling a stake as early as August. The transaction is estimated at as much as 10 billion yen ($87 million), the newspaper said. Packard Bell has annual sales of about 130 billion yen but has posted losses in recent years.