Foxconn willing to pay 25 billion euros for Toshiba’s nand production

The Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn Electronics, or Hon Hai Precision Industry, is said to be willing to pay almost 25.5 billion euros to acquire Toshiba’s nand memory division. Bloomberg reports this citing an anonymous source.

In addition to Foxconn, the Korean SK Hynix and chipmaker Broadcom have also made bids for Toshiba’s nand memory division, which is valued at around 17 billion euros. SK Hynix is ​​said to be in talks with Japanese investors to arrive at a joint offer. It is not known whether Foxconn’s offer actually amounts to 25.5 billion euros.

Last week, Japanese media reported that Google, Amazon, Apple and Western Digital, among others, have also placed bids. Toshiba and Japanese government officials are said to be looking for Japanese takeover candidates, according to the anonymous source, but they have not yet come forward. The Japanese government wants to keep production in Japan, given the strategic value of chip production for future technologies.

Foxconn’s offer may be part of a strategy that the Taiwanese company also applied last year when it acquired Sharp. Then Foxconn made a very high initial offer to outdo competitors and force Sharp’s management into starting negotiations. It later emerged that Foxconn’s accepted takeover offer was lower than what the company had previously offered.

Taiwanese media reported last week that TSMC had dropped out of the bidding war for a stake in Toshiba’s nand production. The manufacturer would have come to the conclusion that the American bidders, such as Apple, Google, Micron and Amazon, have a better chance.

Toshiba splits its nand production into a separate company Toshiba Memory and sells part because it is in financial trouble after a series of financial setbacks. After Samsung, Toshiba is currently the world’s largest nand memory manufacturer.