Western Digital and Kioxia Said to be Considering Merging Flash Production Business
According to a report from Bloomberg, Western Digital and Kioxia are holding new talks about a potential merger of both companies' flash production businesses. The merger appears to be quite complex, as not only does it involve Western Digital spinning off its flash production business unit, which is then said to be merged with Kioxia, into what will be a publicly traded company in the US, but there will also be a second listing in Japan for the company.
Considering that Kioxia came out of Toshiba's DRAM and NAND flash manufacturing business, in which Western Digital was a partner until Toshiba divested its business into Kioxia. This caused quite some tension between the two companies, but Western Digital and Kioxia kept producing NAND flash in the shared facilities. The report by Bloomberg suggests that a management team from Western Digital will be running the combined company, which could potentially lead to future issues between the US and Japanese sides of the company. Time will tell if a merger will actually take place or not, as the two companies failed to come to an agreement in 2021, but it's possible that something has changed since then. Back in 2021, the merger was valued at US$20 billion plus.
Considering that Kioxia came out of Toshiba's DRAM and NAND flash manufacturing business, in which Western Digital was a partner until Toshiba divested its business into Kioxia. This caused quite some tension between the two companies, but Western Digital and Kioxia kept producing NAND flash in the shared facilities. The report by Bloomberg suggests that a management team from Western Digital will be running the combined company, which could potentially lead to future issues between the US and Japanese sides of the company. Time will tell if a merger will actually take place or not, as the two companies failed to come to an agreement in 2021, but it's possible that something has changed since then. Back in 2021, the merger was valued at US$20 billion plus.