Hitachi Ltd, Japan’s second-largest manufacturer, has sold its entire 4.7 percent stake in Elpida Memory Inc, whose stock will be delisted in less than a month after filing for bankruptcy.
Hitach sold all 12.8 million shares of Tokyo-based Elpida by Monday, spokesman Yuichi Izumisawa said by telephone yesterday, confirming an earlier report by Nikkei Shimbun.
Hitachi, which was the largest shareholder in the chipmaker according to data compiled by Bloomberg, held the stake for its retirement benefits trust, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Elpida, which lost money for five straight quarters, sought protection from creditors at the Tokyo District Court on Feb. 27 with liabilities of ￥448 billion (US$5.5 billion). Troubles at the chipmaker, formed through the 1999 merger of Hitachi and NEC Corp’s memory businesses, were exacerbated by an 85 percent slump in the price of DRAM chips and a stronger yen that cut the value of overseas sales. The Tokyo Stock Exchange will delist Elpida on March 28.
Hitachi transferred its Elpida stake to its pension trust in March 2008. Izumisawa declined to provide details such as the price at which Elpida shares were sold as the company does not comment on the trading of individual stocks in the trust.
DRAM prices plunged last year after PC shipments missed analyst forecasts and sales of mobile devices, such as Apple Inc’s iPad, surged. The price of the benchmark DDR3 2-gigabit DRAM declined to a record low of US$0.71 in November, compared with US$4.85 on Sept. 1, 2010, amid slowing PC sales, according to Taipei-based DRAMeXchange, Asia’s biggest spot market for the chips.
Samsung Electronics Co controlled 38 percent of the DRAM market by revenue last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Industries. Hynix Semiconductor Inc held a 25 percent share and Elpida had 18 percent.
Elpida was unchanged at ￥3 at the close of trading in Tokyo after losing 99 percent of its market value since its bankruptcy filing. Hitachi declined 1.9 percent yesterday to ￥461, underperforming the Nikkei 225 Stock Average, which fell 0.6 percent.
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