Wednesday, October 18th 2023

SK Hynix Might Throw a Spanner in the Kioxia WD Merger

The drawn out merger talks between Kioxia and Western Digital's memory and NAND flash manufacturing businesses appears to have hit an unexpected bump on the road, in the shape of SK Hynix according to the Nikkei. As it happens, SK Hynix holds an indirect stake in Kioxia and as such, they need to approve the merger for it to be able to happen. Today, SK Hynix is the second biggest manufacturer of NAND flash, somewhat behind Samsung, but if the Kioxia WD merger were to take place, SK Hynix would be pushed into a third place in the market, which wouldn't benefit the company.

As such, SK Hynix is trying to push for a rather odd option for Kioxia, where SK Hynix wants Japanese SoftBank—who owns among other things, Arm—to step in as a partner with Kioxia. However, what SK Hynix seems to have forgotten is that WD's memory chips are made in the same fab as Kioxia's and it's highly unlikely that WD would be keen on seeing this last minute proposal by SK Hynix play out. The Kioxia WD merger would result in a new company where Kioxia would own 63 percent and WD 37 percent, based on current assets. However, WD is meant to add further capital to the merger, so it can get a 50.1 percent stake in the final company for its shareholders, with Kioxia ending up with 49.9 percent.
Sources: The Nikkei, via @harukaze5719 on X/Twitter
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3 Comments on SK Hynix Might Throw a Spanner in the Kioxia WD Merger

#1
Chaitanya
Interesting, I thought Toshiba(Kioxia) and WD were merged long time back or was it just HDD business ?
Posted on Reply
#2
mahirzukic2
ChaitanyaInteresting, I thought Toshiba(Kioxia) and WD were merged long time back or was it just HDD business ?
That is correct. As per the article:
The drawn out merger talks between Kioxia and Western Digital's memory and NAND flash manufacturing businesses
This refers to the NAND and memory business units, the HDD unit was merged previously.
Posted on Reply
#3
bug
WD's memory chips are made in the same fab as Kioxia's
Kind of funny reading about WD making memory chips. But then you realize they acquired SanDisk a while ago.
Posted on Reply
Dec 7th, 2024 14:13 CST change timezone

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