Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday September 14 2017, @06:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the chipped-away dept.

Some news outlets reported that Western Digital was close to acquiring Toshiba's memory business, but that had not been finalized as of Tuesday:

Toshiba Corp now favors a group led by Bain Capital LP and SK Hynix Inc to buy its prized semiconductor business, as it failed to bridge key gaps with its business partner and rival bidder Western Digital Corp, two people briefed on the matter said on Tuesday.

The dramatic twist in the sale process, beset by legal wrangling and revised bids, comes just a day before Toshiba's latest deadline. The Japanese conglomerate, which needs to sell the chip business to plug a huge hole in its finances, had been trying to seal a deal by Wednesday with the Western Digital group but now hopes to reach agreement with the Bain group by next week, said the sources, who declined to be identified as the talks were private.

A Toshiba spokesman said the firm could not comment on details of the talks. The parties have already missed two deadlines by Toshiba's banks, which want a deal to pump $18 billion or more into the company to pull it out of negative shareholder equity and prevent it from being delisted. Yoshimitsu Kobayashi, an external Toshiba director, told reporters earlier on Tuesday that although the deadline is important, it is also important that negotiations head in a good direction.

Apple, a buyer of Toshiba's NAND chips, reportedly threatened Western Digital with a boycott of its products if it took complete control of Toshiba's memory business. But it did offer $460 million in acquisition financing for a group including WD as long as WD remained a minority investor.

Update: Toshiba says it favors a bid from a group led by Bain Capital, but is still open to better offers.

Toshiba to focus on chip talks with Bain, but doesn't rule out other suitors

Start the Bidding War, Toshiba

Previously: Broadcom and Japanese Government Considering Bid for Toshiba's Semiconductor Unit
Samsung Could Boost NAND Production Capacity, WD Intervenes in Toshiba Memory Sale
Toshiba Sues Western Digital as it Seeks to Sell its Memory Business to a Third Party


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:19PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:19PM (#567881)

    Chaos? A bit dramatical, I think.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:28PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:28PM (#567895) Journal

    When one of the companies that wants to buy you sues you to keep the process going, delaying the sale by a quarter or longer while your company continues to reel from a multi-billion-dollar nuclear writedown [bloomberg.com], and then that company gets threatened by Apple to not buy over a certain %, that's chaos.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]