Toshiba Memory buys back shares of Apple, Dell, Seagate and Kingston
Apple, Dell, Kingston and Seagate will sell their stake in Toshiba Memory, the company that emerged from the spin-off of Toshiba’s memory division, within weeks, according to business newspaper The Wall Street Journal.
Control over the company will not change, writes The Wall Street Journal. Investment company Bain Capital remains the main shareholder, followed by Toshiba. Toshiba has those shares through Pangea, a company formed before the acquisition that consisted of a consortium of companies. Apple, Dell, Kingston and Seagate will have jointly earned several hundred million dollars from the transaction after the sale of their shares. Toshiba Memory can buy back the shares through a loan from Japanese banks. Ultimately, Toshiba’s former nand division wants to go public in Japan at the end of this year or early next year.
Apple, Dell, Kingston and Seagate joined in a consortium with Bain to buy Toshiba’s nand division so that Western Digital couldn’t. Toshiba and WD were working together and WD was keen to buy the division, but other companies feared that the transaction would hurt competition in the memory market. In addition to the four American companies, SK Hynix is also part of the consortium that bought shares of Toshiba Memory.