Xerox Corp is considering the sale of its leasing unit that lends money to customers to rent printers and equipment, according to a report by Reuters. The move would make the company more attractive to potential buyers following the termination of its $6.1 billion sale to Fujifilm Holdings.
Divesting the leasing unit would remove about $3.6 billion in debt.
Billionaire activist investors Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason, who took control of Xerox earlier this year and scuppered the Fujifilm proposal, are preparing to launch an auction for the iconic US company, which has a market capitalization of $6.4 billion and total debt of $5.5 billion.
Xerox, which declined to comment on the report, has not yet made a final decision on selling the leasing finance unit, sources told Reuters.
Private equity firm Apollo Global Management reportedly approached Xerox in May to express its interest in acquiring the company.
Last month, Xerox announced plans to sell Xerox products directly into the growing Asia Pacific market.
In a letter to Fujifilm chairman Shigetaka Komori, Xerox CEO John Visentin said a $1 billion lawsuit filed in New York by Fujifilm against Xerox was “nothing more than a desperate, misguided negotiating ploy” to save the takeover proposal.
Visentin says Fujifilm’s expectation that Xerox will come to Fujifilm with a new proposal for a combination transaction “is simply delusional. It will not happen.”