TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese camera and office equipment maker Canon Inc said it would pay $403 million for a quarter stake in Hitachi Ltd's LCD panel business to get its own supply of parts for its cameras and copiers.


Canon and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co agreed in December to buy 24.9 percent each of the LCD panel maker, Hitachi Displays, now wholly owned by Hitachi.

Canon, the world's largest maker of digital cameras, currently has to buy LCD panels for its cameras, camcorders, copiers and printers.

Wednesday's announcement of the price Canon will pay is the latest in a flurry of alliances in Japan's LCD panel and flat TV industry as companies seek ways to share hefty investment bills and hedge against the risk of oversupply.

Canon wants to eventually buy Hitachi Displays stakes from Matsushita, the maker of Panasonic products, and Hitachi Ltd to make it a subsidiary. Matsushita has so far not revealed the purchase for its quarter.

Hitachi Displays owns 50 percent of large LCD maker IPS Alpha Technology.

Canon's announcement follows Sony Corp's decision on Tuesday to take a one-third stake in a $3.5 billion LCD panel plant being built by Sharp Corp .

Also, a source at Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Wednesday that Sony and Samsung were in the final stages of talks to jointly build a new LCD panel production line.

Samsung and Sony, the world's largest and second-largest LCD TV makers, run an LCD joint venture, S-LCD.

Shares in Canon closed unchanged at 5,000 yen, underperforming the Nikkei average , which rose 1.5 percent.

($1=107.25 Yen)

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka)
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