YIkes! Barron's does a story about an "office equipment maker." Barron's says "Ricoh May Rise 30 Percent as Acquisition Pay Off."

The acquisitions in question are InfoPrint and Ikon. Now if someone can get IBM and Ricoh, Japan to focus on the clickable newspapers instead of textbooks, I and my IRA will be happier still.

Ricoh May Rise 30 Percent as Acquisition Pay Off, Barron’s Says -
Bloomberg.com:
"By Mina Kawai
Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Ricoh Co., Japan’s second-largest maker of office equipment, may rise 30 percent or more over the next year as the global economy improves and recent acquisitions boost profit, Barron’s reported, citing Yoshikazu Higurashi, an analyst at Deutsche Securities Inc. in Tokyo.

The 2007 purchase of InfoPrint Solutions, International Business Machine Corp.’s printing-systems unit, provides Ricoh with a foothold in the high-volume document market, “one of the fastest-growing segments” for office equipment, the weekly newspaper said in its Aug. 3 issue, citing Kunihiko Kanno, an analyst at Credit Suisse in Tokyo.

The company’s 2008 acquisition of Ikon Office Solutions, a distributor of copiers and printers for its bigger competitor Canon Inc., may lure some customers to Ricoh products, Barron’s said."

Actually I think they are a little behind the curve on the Canon thing. From what I think I read 70% of Canon boxes have already been replaced by Ricoh boxes.

Full disclosure: Long on Ricoh.