Toshiba Corp and its joint venture partner Western Digital Corp have made peace over the embattled Japanese electronics giant’s plan to sell its flash memory unit to raise cash to stay afloat.
The agreement allows Western Digital to participate in future investments in their joint venture, clearing the way for a consortium led by Bain Capital to buy Toshiba Memory Corp (TMC), the companies said yesterday.
The agreement also addresses concerns over protection of valuable patents and other intellectual property in the highly competitive field of flash memory products used in many high-tech products.
The two companies said the deal settles all disputes in litigation and arbitration over Western Digital’s objections to the planned sale of the companies’ NAND flash memory SanDisk Corp joint venture.
“The settlement represents the best possible outcome for all parties, clearing the way for the Bain Capital-led consortium to complete its acquisition of TMC as planned,” Bain Capital managing director in Japan Yuji Sugimoto said in a statement.
The two companies said they would jointly invest in a new computer chip fabrication unit at their joint venture in central Japan and in another facility in northeastern Japan’s Iwate Prefecture.
The plan calls for TMC to eventually sell shares through an initial public offering.
“With the concerns about litigation and arbitration removed, we look forward to renewing our collaboration with Western Digital and accelerating TMC’s growth to meet growing global demand for flash memory,” said TMC president and CEO Yasuo Naruke, who is also a Toshiba senior executive vice president.
He said the plan would ensure TMC has the resources it needs to compete in the flash memory market, which is growing quickly with advances in artificial intelligence and networks for products that have Internet connections, known broadly as the Internet of Things.
Western Digital CEO Steve Milligan said that the arrangement with Toshiba adequately protects Western Digital’s interests.
Toshiba has said it hopes the sale, estimated at ￥2 trillion (US$17.6 billion), would close by the end of March.
It might have to clear further hurdles, such as possible anti-trust concerns.
Toshiba is inundated with losses related to its US nuclear operations at Westinghouse Electric Co, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.
Its decline, which worsened earlier scandals over bookkeeping and corporate governance, is one of the most dramatic downfalls of a modern Japanese company.
However, the company has said it expects to return to the black by the end of this fiscal year, in March.
In the meantime, it has struggled to avoid being delisted. Last week it raised ￥600 billion by issuing new shares with 60 overseas investment funds.
Boston-based Bain Capital Private Equity is one of the world’s leading investment firms.
The consortium it is leading includes government-backed Development Bank of Japan Inc and Innovation Network Corp of Japan, which is made up of 26 big-name Japanese corporate investors, including Sony Corp, Canon Inc, Toyota Motor Corp and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV yesterday said that it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 people in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand from clients. ASML had previously planned to recruit 600 people this year, but that the plan has been adjusted upward, ASML vice president and ASML Taiwan general manager Grace Wang (汪佳慧) told reporters. ASML has a workforce of more than 4,500 in Taiwan, accounting for about 10 percent of its global total, Wang said. This year’s recruitment campaign would focus on adding people in the customer support, manufacturing and supply chain domains to assist ASML
UNDER MICROSCOPE: Taiwan detained three people who allegedly conspired to buy servers in Taiwan and export them using fraudulent documentation, prosecutors said Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday urged Super Micro Computer Inc to tighten up on compliance after Taiwan detained three people this week for allegedly making fraudulent declarations about artificial intelligence (AI) servers made by its US partner. The development marked the nation’s first crackdown on semiconductor smuggling, which grew after the US slapped restrictions on exports of high-end chips such as Nvidia AI accelerators to China. Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining regulations to all of its partners, Huang told reporters after arriving in Taipei. “Ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company,” he said in response to
Nvidia Corp yesterday announced that CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) would attend an employee meeting in Taipei tomorrow to celebrate the launch of the company’s Taiwan headquarters project. Huang would attend a gathering at the site of Nvidia’s planned headquarters in Beitou Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區), the company said in a statement. After arriving in Taiwan on Saturday last week, Huang told reporters that he plans to meet with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), and would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for Nvidia’s Taiwan headquarters tomorrow. Nvidia has not yet applied
RSS