SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Thursday September 14 2017, @09:18PM
So buying up their competition makes sense for WD. However it will both:
- drive up prices.
- possibly crater WD
The problem being that memory fabs are expensive and if Samsung finds a way to make it cheaper and large enough volume, all of WDs vertical products could become either old/slow and over priced in the market.
It's actually in everyone's best interest, including WDs in the medium term, not have WD controlling too much ... do you really want Seagate as the only remaining drive manufacturer?