- Kioxia Holdings Corp and Western Digital Corp (NASDAQ:WDC) accelerated merger talks have progressed towards a deal as plunging market demand and oversupply of chips weighed on the companies.
- Kioxia would have a 43% stake and Western Digital a 37% ownership under the deal, Reuters cites familiar sources.
- Combining their flash memory businesses could boost competitiveness against rivals like South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co, Ltd (OTC: SSNLF).
- The planned merger will also likely draw anti-trust scrutiny in several countries, including the U.S. and China.
- Activist investor Elliott Management, which owns convertible preferred shares in Western Digital, has pushed the U.S. company to split off its flash-memory business from its hard-drive division since investing in the stock in 2022.
- Such a split would precede the flash memory combination with Kioxia. Also, the merged company might seek a listing after the deal.
- Elliott is also a shareholder of Toshiba Corp (OTC:TOSYY), which owns 40.6% of Kioxia.
- Kioxia's falling valuation is one of the factors that dragged down Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) buyout offer price for Toshiba.
- A combined Kioxia-Western Digital would control a third of the global NAND flash market, putting it on par with Samsung.
- Analysts say Kioxia and Western Digital have been more vulnerable to NAND flash market volatility than Samsung and SK Hynix Inc.
- Price Action: WDC shares traded higher by 2.72% at $33.93 premarket on the last check Monday.
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