Akai

Akai (赤井, a̠ka̠i) is a Hong Kong manufacturer of consumer electronics. It was founded as Akai Electric Company Ltd in Tokyo, Japan, in 1946. Following the controversial collapse of the original business in 2000, the Akai brand is now owned by Grande Holdings in Hong Kong which distributes various electronic products such as LED TV, washing machines, clothes dryers, air conditioners and smart phones, through collaborations with other electronics companies bearing relevant expertise. The "Akai Professional" electronic instrument division was spun off in 1999 and remains under separate ownership from that of the main "Akai" brand. Akai was founded by Masukichi Akai and his son, Saburo Akai (who died in 1973) as Akai Electric Company Ltd., a Japanese manufacturer in 1929 or 1946. The company's business eventually became discombobulated and it left the audio industry in 1991. At its peak in the late 1990s, Akai Holdings employed 100,000 workers and had annual sales of HK$40 billion (US$5.2 billion). The company filed for insolvency in November 2000, owing creditors US$1.1B. It emerged that ownership of Akai Holdings had somehow passed in 1999 to Grande Holdings, a company founded by Akai's chairman James Ting. The liquidators claimed that Ting had stolen over US$800m from the company with the assistance of accountants Ernst & Young who had tampered with audit documents going back to 1994. Ting was imprisoned for false accounting in 2005, and E&Y paid $200m to settle the negligence case out of court in September 2009. In a separate lawsuit, a former E&Y partner, Christopher Ho, made a "substantial payment" to Akai creditors in his role as chairman of Grande Holdings. The "Akai Professional" division specialising in electronic instruments became a separate business in 1999. It was bought in 2005 by businessman Jack O'Donnell (later becoming a part of his inMusic Brands group) and is no longer associated with the main "Akai" brand.