Infineon Technologies AG said on Friday it is ahead of schedule in divesting its memory-chip business, and that it hopes to spin off the unit through an initial public offering.
At a news conference in Munich, Infineon officials said they planned to finish the transfer of the unit into a separate, legal entity by May 1, beating its original forecast by two months.
The new company will be called Qimonda AG and employ some 12,000 workers worldwide. Taking the unit public is still the preferred plan, Infineon chief executive Wolfgang Ziebart said, adding the spinoff would strengthen Infineon's competitive position.
"Various teams have been working hard and at full speed to accomplish the carve-out two months ahead of the original schedule," he said.
Kin Wah-loh (羅建華), who has headed Infineon's memory products business since last year, was tapped to be the first CEO of Qimonda.
"We will leverage our strong engineering expertise to expand our product and customer portfolio. We will constantly push the limits in technology and manufacturing," he said. "From a strategic point of view, this simply means that we believe this new company has the right recipe for sustained profitable growth."
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