According to sources close to Nikkei, the merger discussions between Western Digital and Kioxia has been terminated. Western Digital notified Kioxia about scrapping the possible transaction, citing the failure to obtain approval from SK Hynix, a significant shareholder of Kioxia, and disagreements over merger terms with Bain Capital, Kioxia's main shareholder. Western Digital and Kioxia, holding the fourth and second positions in the global NAND flash memory market, respectively, planned to join their NAND operations under one roof to create the world's largest maker of NAND memory and potentially enhance their competitive standing and profitability.

The merger was seen as a strategic move to rival Samsung's market dominance by leveraging the companies' combined resources and capabilities, and the plan was to happen as soon as the end of this month. However, the merger faced substantial opposition from SK Hynix, the world's third-largest NAND supplier with a 17.8% market share. Having invested more than $2.6 billion in a consortium led by Bain Capital that previously acquired Kioxia in 2018, SK Hynix expressed concerns that the proposed merger would adversely impact its market position and future collaboration opportunities with Kioxia. This opposition proved to be a pivotal obstacle, preventing the realization of the merger.

Intel Corporation today announced its intent to separate its Programmable Solutions Group (PSG) operations into a standalone business. This will give PSG the autonomy and flexibility it needs to fully accelerate its growth and more effectively compete in the FPGA industry, which serves a broad array of markets, including the data center, communications, industrial, automotive, aerospace and defense sectors. Intel also announced that Sandra Rivera, executive vice president at Intel, will assume leadership of PSG as chief executive officer; Shannon Poulin has been named chief operating officer.

Standalone operations for PSG are expected to begin Jan. 1, 2024, with ongoing support from Intel. Intel expects to report PSG as a separate business unit when it releases first-quarter 2024 financials. Over the next two to three years, Intel intends to conduct an IPO for PSG and may explore opportunities with private investors to accelerate the business's growth, with Intel retaining a majority stake.

Insiders claim that a potential merger between Western Digital and Kioxia is closer to happening—following longer than anticipated negotiation between involved parties, including Bain Capital and Toshiba. Technicalities have prolonged proceedings—an August 2023 sign off date was expected—but Kioxia Holdings' lenders seem motivated to get everything over the finish line. According to a Bloomberg report, at least three Japanese banks are ready to submit a commitment letter (next month) for the refinancing of ¥2 trillion ($14 billion) in loans—anonymous sources suggest that Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group are involved. These organizations hope to fund the merger with Western Digital's flash memory business.

Representatives for Western Digital, Kioxia, Bain Capital and (so far named) Japanese banks have declined to provide statements in response to the Bloomberg report. Allegedly, part of the loan will be used to pay special dividends to Kioxia's shareholders. A Reuters summary of said conditions reads: "Under the terms of the deal being negotiated, Western Digital will hold about 50.5% of the combined company with the remaining 49.5% held by Kioxia...Of the 2 trillion yen loan, 400 billion yen will likely be funded through loan commitments and the Development Bank of Japan will provide a loan of 300 billion yen. The rest will likely be equally split between the three megabanks." Bloomberg's insiders believe that Western Digital's hard drive business is not being offered up.

Intel Corporation today announced that it has agreed to sell an approximately 10% stake in the IMS Nanofabrication business ("IMS") to TSMC. TSMC's investment values IMS at approximately $4.3 billion, consistent with the valuation of the recent stake sale to Bain Capital Special Situations ("Bain Capital"). Intel will retain majority ownership of IMS, which will continue to operate as a standalone subsidiary under the leadership of CEO Dr. Elmar Platzgummer. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2023.

IMS is the established industry leader in multi-beam mask writing tools required to develop advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV), which is broadly adopted in leading-edge technology nodes that enable the most demanding computing applications, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and mobile. Together, Bain Capital and TSMC's investments provide IMS with increased independence and reinforce confidence in the significant opportunity ahead of IMS. This added autonomy will help IMS accelerate its growth and drive the next phase of lithography technology innovation to enable the industry's transition into new patterning systems, such as high-numerical-aperture (high-NA) EUV.

Intel Corporation today reported second-quarter 2023 financial results. "Our Q2 results exceeded the high end of our guidance as we continue to execute on our strategic priorities, including building momentum with our foundry business and delivering on our product and process roadmaps," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. "We are also well-positioned to capitalize on the significant growth across the AI continuum by championing an open ecosystem and silicon solutions that optimize performance, cost and security to democratize AI from cloud to enterprise, edge and client."

David Zinsner, Intel CFO, said, "Strong execution, including progress towards our $3 billion in cost savings in 2023, contributed to the upside in the quarter. We remain focused on operational efficiencies and our Smart Capital strategy to support sustainable growth and financial discipline as we improve our margins and cash generation and drive shareholder value." In the second quarter, the company generated $2.8 billion in cash from operations and paid dividends of $0.5 billion.

Intel Corporation today announced that it has agreed to sell an approximately 20% stake in its IMS Nanofabrication GmbH ("IMS") business to Bain Capital Special Situations ("Bain Capital"), in a transaction that values IMS at approximately $4.3 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2023. IMS will operate as a standalone subsidiary and will continue to be led by CEO Dr. Elmar Platzgummer.

Since inventing multi e-beam technology and introducing the first commercial multi-beam mask writer in 2015, Vienna, Austria-based IMS has been an industry leader in multi-beam mask writing for advanced technology nodes. Intel initially invested in IMS in 2009 and ultimately acquired the business in 2015. Since the acquisition, IMS has delivered a significant return on investment to Intel while growing its workforce and production capacity by four times and delivering three additional product generations.

KIOXIA and Western Digital are in talks to merge, creating a behemoth in the data storage industry. This would be KIOXIA's first big corporate move after being spun off from Toshiba Corporation as its flash memory business. The combination—if it goes through—would essentially see the merger of three distinct brands—KIOXIA, Western Digital, and SanDisk; with KIOXIA and SanDisk bringing together market-leading expertise in flash memory; and Western Digital bringing in "warm" and cold storage solutions, such as hard drives. 5G is expected to create an explosion in data, and the merged trans-Pacific entity could more effectively address it. A deal worth $20 billion could be struck by mid-September, if the merger talks succeed. KIOXIA is declining to comment on the story, as it prepares its IPO that includes shares from Toshiba and Bain Capital. Shares of Western Digital, meanwhile, are trading up.

Toshiba Corporation announced today via a press release that China regulators have approved the sale of Toshiba Memory Corporation (TMC) to Bain Capital. The $18 billion deal was struck last year, but it was put on hold for several months as Chinese antitrust regulators were contemplating its approval.

Things were looking grim for Toshiba and Bain Capital as they were caught in the middle of the current US-China trade war. Nevertheless, China has given them the green light to proceed with the deal. Now that the necessary anti-trust approvals are in place, Toshiba and Bain Capital expect the sale it to be completed by June 1. Bain Capital said in a statement, "We are making this important investment because we see the opportunity to further grow Toshiba Memory Corporation. This transaction will help ensure a competitive global semiconductor market and protect the supply chain from potential disruption."

The Financial Times has reported that Toshiba is considering a last-ditch effort towards producing liquidity, should its memory chip production business spin-off to Bain Capital not be allowed to complete prior to the end of March, in the face of antitrust scrutiny delays. Should that be the case, Toshiba would be in a dire situation, as the spin-off development has clearly shown (remember that Toshiba went from a 20% stake spin-off to a 100% spin-off due to increasing concerns with the company's outstanding debt and lack of liquidity).

Should that be the case, the company is reportedly considering an IPO as one of its contingency plans, the Financial Times reports, citing sources familiar with the plans. If the acquisition by Bain Capital fails to win regulatory approval by March 31, Toshiba is no longer bound to the deal's terms, sources familiar with the situation have told Reuters. The Financial Times further added that some analysts - and Toshiba shareholders - favor this contingency plan over the existing deal - and apparently there's some sentiment towards the same in the financial markets at large, as Toshiba shares hit a three-month high in morning trade, at one point rising as much as 4.7 percent, after these IPO plans started being made public. If Toshiba's board wasn't considering an IPO before, they sure are more likely to do so now.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it is going ahead with a forward-looking plan for a new memory fabrication facility in Kitakami, Iwate prefecture. Toshiba Memory Corporation (TMC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba, will establish a company to operate the facility, and invest approximately 7 billion yen in site preparation and initial construction work in FY2017. The new facility, announced on September 6, 2017, will produce BiCS Flash, TMC's proprietary flash memory. It will be TMC's seventh fab.

Toshiba Corporation, Toshiba Memory Corporation, and Western Digital Corporation have entered into a global settlement agreement to resolve their ongoing disputes in litigation and arbitration, strengthen and extend their relationship, and enhance the mutual commitment to their ongoing flash memory collaboration.

As part of this agreement, TMC and Western Digital will participate jointly in future rounds of investment in Fab 6, the state-of-the-art memory fabrication facility now under construction at Yokkaichi, including the upcoming investment round announced by Toshiba in October 2017. Fab 6 will be entirely devoted to the mass production of BiCS FLASH, the next-generation of 3D flash memory, starting next year. TMC and Western Digital similarly intend to enter into definitive agreements in due course under which Western Digital will participate in the new flash wafer fabrication facility which will be constructed in Iwate, Japan.

The parties will strengthen their flash memory collaboration by extending the terms of their joint ventures. Flash Alliance will be extended to December 31, 2029 and Flash Forward to December 31, 2027. Flash Partners was previously extended to December 31, 2029.

Toshiba Corporation today held an extraordinary shareholders' meeting where Toshiba's shareholders approved the Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) previously entered into with K.K. Pangea (Pangea), a special purpose acquisition company formed by the consortium led by Bain Capital Private Equity, LP (including affiliates of Bain), for the sale of all shares of Toshiba's wholly-owned subsidiary Toshiba Memory Corporation (TMC).

SanDisk LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital Corporation, and certain of its subsidiaries have filed for arbitration before the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Court of Arbitration regarding the sale. Despite SanDisk and Western Digital's opposition, Toshiba remains fully determined to resolving the issue through the arbitration process, and looks forward to receiving the arbitrators' decision.

Since signing of the SPA on September 28, 2017, Toshiba and Pangea have been jointly working towards the closing of the transaction by the end of March 2018. Today's approval of the SPA by Toshiba's shareholders is an important step towards closing.

Toshiba today announced that it has signed an agreement with a consortium led by Bain Capital to sell its memory business for JPY 2 trillion (approximately USD $18 billion). The consortium includes Korean memory giant SK Hynix, which contributed JPY 395 billion (nearly 20 percent) of the consortium's investment toward acquisition of Toshiba Memory Corp. Apple and Dell are the other members of the consortium.

Toshiba Corporation (erstwhile parent of Toshiba Memory Corp.) continues to hold a 40.2 percent stake, which along with another Japanese company, Hoya Corporation, holding a 9.9 percent stake, ensure that Japanese firms hold 50.1 percent of the business, keeping Japanese regulators happy. The Bain Capital-led consortium will hold a 49.9 percent stake, ensuring that Toshiba Memory Corp. stays afloat, and away from rival Western Digital, which has dragged Toshiba to a multitude of international courts and arbitrators. Apart from SK Hynix, the Bain Capital-led consortium includes Apple and Dell, who feared they would lose DRAM and NAND flash price bargaining power if Toshiba Memory fell in the hands of Western Digital, which owns SanDisk.

The light is being seen at the end of the tunnel for one of the tech world's most recent debacles. A series of questionable investments and accounting scandals saw Toshiba facing losses in the billions of dollars and see its stock pricing plummet by more than 40%. As such, to staunch the bleeding, the company was looking to only spin-off a 20% stake in its memory business; however, as its finances continued to take a turn to the worse, it then decided on selling a majority, 60% stake to the highest bidder. That would seemingly still not be enough, however, as the company will now sell 100% of its memory semiconductor business to investment consortium Bain Capital.

Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502) (Toshiba) has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Bain Capital Private Equity LP (Bain), the lead member of a consortium currently bidding to acquire Toshiba Memory Corporation (TMC), memorializing the parties' intent to negotiate a mutually satisfactory definitive agreement for the sale of TMC by the end of this month. The decision to enter into the MOU was made by Toshiba's Board of Directors at its meeting today.

As Toshiba stated in its August 31 announcement, "Update on the Sale of Toshiba Memory Corporation," Toshiba has been in continuing negotiations with three consortia of potential purchasers of TMC: a consortium that includes the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, Bain and Development Bank of Japan; a consortium that includes Western Digital; and a consortium that includes Hon Hai. In the course of these negotiations Bain has come forward with a new proposal. Toshiba's Board of Directors has determined to continue negotiations with the Bain-led consortium on the basis of this new proposal, and the company will work to expedite the conclusion of a stock purchase agreement by the end of September. Toshiba hereby announces that it has accordingly entered into a non-binding MOU with Bain. The signing of this MOU does not eliminate the possibility of negotiations with other consortia.

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today commented on Toshiba Corporation's ("Toshiba") statement regarding the transfer of its interests in its NAND flash-memory joint ventures operated with Western Digital's SanDisk subsidiaries ("JVs"):

"We are disappointed that Toshiba would take this action despite Western Digital's tireless efforts to reach a resolution that is in the best interests of all stakeholders. Throughout our ongoing dialogue with Toshiba, we have been flexible, constructive and have submitted numerous proposals to specifically address Toshiba's stated concerns. Our goal has been - and remains - to reach a mutually beneficial outcome that satisfies the needs of Toshiba and its stakeholders, and most importantly, ensures the longevity and continued success of the JVs.

Furthermore, it is surprising that Toshiba would continue to pursue a transaction with a consortium led by Korea-based SK Hynix Inc. and Bain Capital Japan without SanDisk's consent, as the language in the relevant JV agreements is unambiguous, and multiple courts have ruled in favor of protecting SanDisk's contractual rights. We remain confident in our ability to protect our JV interests and consent rights."

The Japanese Toshiba have been in a sort of bad run lately, following disastrous investments into nuclear plants and a $1.2 billion "mistake" in their earnings reports, which gave the company a hard time in refinancing itself in the Tokyo Exchange. Now, in a bid to sell a 20% stake of their highly successful memory business, the company has elected a preferred buyer. And in what might not come as a surprise, they elected a US-Japan consortium led by the Japanese government itself.

Toshiba said it selected the consortium, consisting of Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (a 26-strong network which includes Sony, Canon and Toyota, among others), Bain Capital Private Equity LP (based in Boston) and the Development Bank of Japan, because it presented "the best proposal in terms of valuation and respect" to "certainty of closing, retention of employees" and I quote again, "maintenance of sensitive technology within Japan". Terms of the deal were not disclosed although analysts have previously estimated Toshiba Memory Corporation to be worth around $20 billion. In its announcement, Toshiba said it intends to reach an agreement for purchase with the consortium before its annual shareholders meeting on June 28. If all goes well, the Japanese tech giant is looking to close on the transaction by March 2018, pending regulatory approval and so forth.

Networking company 3Com announced Friday that it will be acquired by private equity company Bain Capital and former joint-venture partner Huawei Technologies in a $2.2 billion cash deal. Under the terms of the deal, 3Com shareholders will get $5.30 in cash per share, representing a 44 percent premium over 3Com's September 27 Nasdaq closing price of $3.68.

3Com has a strong competitive position, and we believe there are significant opportunities to grow by acquiring customers and introducing new products,

Jonathan Zhu, a Bain Capital managing director based in Hong Kong, said in a statement.