Japan: Toshiba chooses winning bid for chipmaker sale

Japan’s Toshiba agreed on Wednesday, September 20, to sell its prized semiconductor business to a group led by US private equity firm Bain Capital LP, a key step in keeping the struggling Japanese conglomerate listed on the Tokyo exchange.

In a last-minute twist to a long and highly contentious auction, Toshiba said in a late-night announcement through the exchange it agreed to sign a contract for the deal worth about ¥2 trillion (US$18 billion).

The decision to sell the world’s No. 2 producer of NAND memory chips (a type of storage technology that does not require power to retain data), first reported by Reuters, was made at a board meeting earlier on Wednesday.

Late on Tuesday, sources had said Toshiba was leaning towards selling the business to its US joint venture partner Western Digital.

It’s unclear whether the sale to the Bain Capital-led group will proceed smoothly, as Western Digital has previously initiated legal action against Toshiba, arguing that no deal can be done without its consent due to its position as Toshiba’s joint venture chip partner.

Full Content: New York Times

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