A friendly takeover bid estimated at 730 million euros (1.1 billion dollars), was announced Monday by Japanese high-tech giant Canon Inc. for Oce, the Dutch manufacturer of office printers and copiers.

A sum of 8.60 euros in cash would be offered by Canon for each Oce share, in an effort to take full ownership of the Netherlands-based company. The management of Oce is in full favor of the bid.

A joint statement by the two companies said, “There will be no worker redundancies as a result of the offer, which has already been accepted by several major shareholders and will result in a merger of the two companies' printing activities.”

The basic aim of Canon and Oce is to produce the overall number one presence in the printing industry.

Canon president Tsuneji Uchida explained that clear advantages would be provided by a merger in research and development, product mix and marketing.

Oce chief executive Rokus van Iperen, who felt that the two companies were a great fit, explained, “This is the best possible combination in the consolidating global printing industry and will deliver scale in research and development, manufacturing and distribution.”

Although Canon’s sales of photocopiers and precision machinery have been hit hard by the global economic downturn, it has still seen strong sales of digital single-lens reflex cameras in recent years.

For the business Q3 through September, a net profit of 36.7 billion yen (410 million dollars), was made by Canon, which was lower by 55.8 percent from a year earlier.