Grapevine: Toyota Set to Announce Major Sponsor

Toyota Motor Corp and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd said they will hold a news conference on Tuesday about their motor sports activities, but provided no further details.

The announcement on Monday followed a report in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business newspaper a day earlier that Matsushita plans to be the main sponsor of Toyota's Formula One racing team with their Panasonic brand. The two companies declined to comment on the article.

Toyota is scheduled to enter Formula One racing in the 2002 season for the first time in its history. Toyota President Fujio Cho and Matsushita President Kunio Nakamura will attend the news conference, the two companies said in a joint statement.

The newspaper said the alliance is expected to help ease Toyota's huge cost of developing racing car engines and platforms, and that Matsushita hoped to improve its corporate image through Formula One. Matsushita and Toyota, one of its key clients, are working on various collaborations including a joint venture for batteries for use in electric vehicles.

Matsushita has supplied electronic devices to Toyota for more than 30 years including car audio equipment and navigation systems. Shares in Toyota finished the morning session at 4,400 yen, up 0.23 percent, while Matsushita fell 1.79 percent to 1,917 yen. The benchmark Nikkei average lost 1.74 percent to 12,743.20.