The Japanese technology corporation NEC plans to sell part of the shares of the semiconductor producer Renesas Electronics owned by it and invest the funds in the development of promising areas such as the development of face recognition technology.

According to the business publication Nikkei, NEC intends to reduce its stake in Renesas from 8.9% to 6%. The deal could bring more than 5 billion yen (45.2 million US dollars), which will increase the company's net profit by about 3 billion yen after taxes. According to the forecast of NEC for the current financial year, which will last until the end of March 2018 calendar, net profit should grow by 10% and reach 30 billion yen (about 274 million dollars). This estimate does not take into account the expected sale of the Renesas share, which could add about 10% to the company's annual net profit, observers say..

Renesas, badly hit by the devastating tsunami of 2011, is successfully restoring its business, and shareholders, including the Japanese state investment fund Innovation Network Corp of Japan, which owns approximately 70 percent of Renesas, and other companies, are gradually reducing their participation in the chipmaker's capital.

In particular, Hitachi plans to sell slightly more than 2% of the shares of Renesas from its stake in 7.7%. In addition, the share in Renesas is going to reduce Mitsubishi Electric, which owns approximately 6% of the company's shares.