• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Western Digital Announces Equity Investment By Unisplendour Corporation

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
46,277 (7.69/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
Western Digital Corporation and Unisplendour Corporation Limited (Unis) today jointly announced that they have entered into an agreement under which a subsidiary of Unis will make a USD $3.775 billion equity investment in Western Digital. Under the terms of the investment, Unis has agreed to purchase newly issued Western Digital common stock at a price of $92.50 per share.

Immediately following the closing of the investment, Unis will hold approximately 15% of Western Digital's issued and outstanding shares of common stock based on the number of issued and outstanding shares as of Sept. 25, 2015. Unis will have the right to nominate one representative to the Western Digital board of directors and will be subject to a five-year position standstill and voting restrictions. The board representative right terminates if Unis' ownership falls below 10%. In addition, Unis has agreed to a five-year lock-up on its shares, with a limited number of shares becoming available for transfer each year.

Proceeds from the investment will go toward strengthening Western Digital's balance sheet, providing financial flexibility and pursuing long-term strategic growth initiatives.

"The equity investment by Unis will help facilitate our growth as we look to capitalize on the many opportunities and changes within the global storage industry," said Steve Milligan, president and chief executive officer, Western Digital. "This investment reflects Unis' strong support for Western Digital's value-creation efforts."

"We are excited to establish a relationship with Western Digital, a leading company in the storage industry with a capable and talented management team and workforce. We believe this long-term investment will serve as a constructive collaboration model for Chinese and U.S. companies to work together for success," said Weiguo Zhao, chairman of Tsinghua Unigroup and Unisplendour Corporation.

The closing of this investment transaction is subject to certain regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Wells Fargo Securities, LLC has acted as the financial advisor to Western Digital.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 

rtwjunkie

PC Gaming Enthusiast
Supporter
Joined
Jul 25, 2008
Messages
13,909 (2.43/day)
Location
Louisiana -Laissez les bons temps rouler!
System Name Bayou Phantom
Processor Core i7-8700k 4.4Ghz @ 1.18v
Motherboard ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 6
Cooling All air: 2x140mm Fractal exhaust; 3x 140mm Cougar Intake; Enermax T40F Black CPU cooler
Memory 2x 16GB Mushkin Redline DDR-4 3200
Video Card(s) EVGA RTX 2080 Ti Xc
Storage 1x 500 MX500 SSD; 2x 6TB WD Black; 1x 4TB WD Black; 1x400GB VelRptr; 1x 4TB WD Blue storage (eSATA)
Display(s) HP 27q 27" IPS @ 2560 x 1440
Case Fractal Design Define R4 Black w/Titanium front -windowed
Audio Device(s) Soundblaster Z
Power Supply Seasonic X-850
Mouse Coolermaster Sentinel III (large palm grip!)
Keyboard Logitech G610 Orion mechanical (Cherry Brown switches)
Software Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (Start10 & Fences 3.0 installed)
Hmmm....Although the past few quarters have still seen profits, they have been reducing in margin, IIRC. Basically, WD gave 15% control of the company for some much needed cash. I'm hoping that they use it to invest into the consumer SSD market, as well as Server SSD market.

Although I see HDD's, especially large ones, as still being viable for ten years, I think after that SSD's will dominate everywhere. So, it would be prudent for WD to invest with that money in SSD's. I hope the money wasn't just to give them cash because the financial situation is even more grim.
 
Joined
Aug 20, 2007
Messages
20,709 (3.41/day)
System Name Pioneer
Processor Ryzen R9 7950X
Motherboard GIGABYTE Aorus Elite X670 AX
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 + A whole lotta Sunon and Corsair Maglev blower fans...
Memory 64GB (4x 16GB) G.Skill Flare X5 @ DDR5-6000 CL30
Video Card(s) XFX RX 7900 XTX Speedster Merc 310
Storage 2x Crucial P5 Plus 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs
Display(s) 55" LG 55" B9 OLED 4K Display
Case Thermaltake Core X31
Audio Device(s) TOSLINK->Schiit Modi MB->Asgard 2 DAC Amp->AKG Pro K712 Headphones or HDMI->B9 OLED
Power Supply FSP Hydro Ti Pro 850W
Mouse Logitech G305 Lightspeed Wireless
Keyboard WASD Code v3 with Cherry Green keyswitches
Software Windows 11 Enterprise (legit), Gentoo Linux x64
Hmmm....Although the past few quarters have still seen profits, they have been reducing in margin, IIRC. Basically, WD gave 15% control of the company for some much needed cash. I'm hoping that they use it to invest into the consumer SSD market, as well as Server SSD market.

Although I see HDD's, especially large ones, as still being viable for ten years, I think after that SSD's will dominate everywhere. So, it would be prudent for WD to invest with that money in SSD's. I hope the money wasn't just to give them cash because the financial situation is even more grim.

The only real place I see HDDs remaining viable is in huge storage solutions like server datafarms where HGST (owned by WD) has some highly competitive helium products, but that's only in the shortterm. They need to start looking at SSD tech to survive.
 
Joined
Sep 15, 2011
Messages
6,457 (1.41/day)
Processor Intel® Core™ i7-13700K
Motherboard Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX
Cooling Noctua NH-D15
Memory 32GB(2x16) DDR5@6600MHz G-Skill Trident Z5
Video Card(s) ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3080 AMP Holo
Storage 2TB SK Platinum P41 SSD + 4TB SanDisk Ultra SSD + 500GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD
Display(s) Acer Predator X34 3440x1440@100Hz G-Sync
Case NZXT PHANTOM410-BK
Audio Device(s) Creative X-Fi Titanium PCIe
Power Supply Corsair 850W
Mouse Logitech Hero G502 SE
Software Windows 11 Pro - 64bit
Benchmark Scores 30FPS in NFS:Rivals
Wow, I didn't know WD value is about 25 billion USD!

Agree, SDD based storage is the future, no questions and doubt about it. HDD is kinda the last surviving dinosaur, together with plastic disks...
Anyways, Intel plan to release in 2 year a 100TB SSD, not sure if even by then any HDD makers can match that capacity. ;)
 
Top