Toshiba agrees to sell chip business: asking price $ 17.8 billion

【Global Network Technology Report】 According to the US media reported on September 28, Toshiba announced on the 28th that it agreed to sell its semiconductor and storage products subsidiary Toshiba Memory Corporation (TMC) to Bain Capital to lead a consortium, the acquisition of the total price For 2 trillion yen (about 17.8 billion U.S. dollars). Toshiba’s board of directors agreed last week to sell the flash memory business to Bain’s lead consortium and finally ended the bid for more than six months. The consortium members include Japan's TAG Heuer, South Korea’s Hynix Semiconductor, and Apple, Kingston, Seagate and Dell. The consortium established a special acquisition company named Pangea for this acquisition. After the TMC was transferred to Pangea, the management of Bain & TMC will lead its business to ensure continuous growth. Pursuant to the acquisition agreement, U.S. investors do not purchase any common shares or voting rights, and Hynix may not acquire TMC patent information and may not have more than 15% of the voting rights in Pangea or TMC for a period of 10 years. In March of this year, Toshiba’s US nuclear electronics company Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy, which caused a severe blow to Toshiba’s operations. Toshiba had to sell its chip business to make up for the huge losses caused by the US nuclear business. Toshiba needs to raise funds before the end of March next year, or it will be delisted by the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Although the agreement has been reached, there are still many obstacles. Toshiba needs to obtain regulatory approval to ensure that the agreement does not violate antitrust regulations or threaten national security. But the biggest blocker came from the resistance of joint venture partner Western Digital. Western Digital tried to prevent Toshiba from selling the flash chip business unit to third-party conglomerates, saying it violated the contract between the two companies. Both parties are still in litigation and arbitration. (Internship compilation: Wang Wei reviewer: Liu Yang)