By the Numbers: Haier buys 20 percent stake in Fisher & Paykel. Is this the appliance world's version of Fiat buying Chrysler?

$50 million

Approximate amount Chinese appliance maker Haier is paying for a 20 percent stake in Fisher & Paykel, a New Zealand appliance manufacturer. The deal shoud help both countries grow beyond their home markets, according to this recent article in The Wall Street Journal.

Haier has been looking to expand its holdings but was outbid by Whirlpool for Maytag in 2004 and last year dropped a bid for General Electric's appliances unit. (Find out who makes which appliances in "Appliance Sleuthing.")

The stake in Fisher & Paykel "will allow Haier to share the marketing and research-and-development resources of Fisher & Paykel in the high-end whiteware market," according to a Haier statement.

Could the investment turn out to be a mixed blessing? Like the Chrysler-Fiat deal, it involves a company (Fisher & Paykel = Chrysler) whose product performance in our tests and reliability are often less than stellar and one (Haier = Fiat) whose appliances are generally aimed at the lower end of the market. Some Haier products do well in our tests, including the ESAD4066 air conditioner, part of our July 2009 report on air conditioning (report and ratings available to subscribers).

Fisher & Paykel, along with Amana, has been among the more repair-prone brands of top-loading washing machines; brand-reliability data, based on responses to the Consumer Reports Annual Product Reliability Survey, conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center are available to subscribers. (The Fisher & Paykel Intuitive IWL16 top-loading washing machine is shown.) And the New Zealand company has been the the most repair-prone brand of dishwashers, according to our survey.—Gian Trotta | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

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