Japan-US-S. Korea team in lead in race for Toshiba chip unit

September 13, 2017

TOKYO- A Japanese-US-South Korean consortium, including US private equity fund Bain Capital, now appears to be taking the lead in the acquisition race for the lucrative flash memory unit of struggling Japanese electronics and machinery giant Toshiba Corp. it was learned Tuesday.

Toshiba has continued talks with hard disk drive maker Western Digital Corp., its US flash memory business partner, on the sale of Toshiba Memory Corp., with the aim of making a decision on the buyer of the unit at a board meeting on Wednesday.

But Toshiba is poised to change the plan as the two companies remained apart over Western Digital's future involvement in the management of Toshiba Memory, informed sources said.

At board meeting, the Toshiba management team will report the firm's plan to consider entering full-fledged negotiations with the Bain Capital side as it has been unable to reach an accord with a group including Western Digital,. the sources said.

Toshiba hopes to select the buyer of Toshiba Memory at its next board meeting on Sept. 20, the sources said. Jiji Press