Panasonic (News - Alert) has secured $7.6 billion of loan commitments from Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and other top banks.

This way, the company avoids searching for money in credit markets. European debt crisis and macroeconomic conditions are making it more difficult to raise money through borrowing. The options were bond issues and commercial paper.

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group said it will loan Panasonic $4.44 billion, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group will loan $2.54 billion, and Resona Holdings will loan 634.84 million.

In related news, Panasonic competitor Sharp (News - Alert) recently secured $4.6 billion in loans from banks including Mizuho Financial Group. Sharp required the money to repay billions of dollars in short-term commercial paper loans.

Earlier this year, Panasonic said group sales for Q1 decreased by six percent due “mainly to weak demand for AV products in Japan,” TMCnet reported. In Q1, Japan’s home electronics market, especially flat-panel TVs, “continued to be very difficult,” TMCnet added. Europe’s financial crisis was cited as one of the reasons for less than stellar results in Q1 for Panasonic.

In other recent news, Panasonic is hosting the Panasonic Solutions Partner Summit 2012 between Oct. 17 and 19 in Phoenix, Ariz. Panasonic executives, reseller partners, distributors and third-party software and hardware solution providers will meet this week.

Bill Brennan, senior director, channel sales – resellers for Panasonic, said in a statement that, "As a company, we've undergone a lot of changes this year to create more sales opportunities for our reseller partners. With access to such a broad suite of products, our partners can now offer their customers more robust, end-to-end technology solutions. We'll use our annual summit to engage with resellers and help them make the most out of their relationship with us."