Micron Confirms Acquisition Talks With Elpida
Micron Technology Inc. has confirmed it is engaged in discussions with Elpida Memory Inc.’s trustees to acquire Elpida’s business.
Micron is offering more than $2.5 billion (200 billion yen) as well as assurances of the continued operation of Elpida’s operations in Japan, according to several reports from Japan-based sources.
The U.S. memory maker made the announcement following a May 10 approval by the Tokyo District Court allowing Elpida’s trustees to negotiate an agreement with Micron, pursuant to which Micron would become Elpida’s sponsor and acquire Elpida’s entire business in accordance with the corporate reorganization proceedings.
Elpida, a semiconductor DRAM memory manufacturer, filed a petition for commencement of corporate reorganization proceedings with the Tokyo District Court under the Corporate Reorganization Act of Japan on Feb. 27, 2012, which proceedings have been commenced.
SK Hynix issued a regulatory filing last week saying it was no longer in the running to buy Elpida. Toshiba is said to be out of the running to buy Elpida. Private equity firm TPG Capital and Chinese fund Hony Capital have submitted a joint bid.
The addition of Elpida’s capacity would give Micron roughly a 25 percent share in the worldwide DRAM market, according to IHS iSuppli, making it the second-largest DRAM maker after Samsung and moving beyond SK Hynix. Elpida has a large fab in Hiroshima, in southern Japan, and a smaller packaging operation in Akita in the northern part of the country.
Elpida is Japan’s last remaining maker of DRAMs, a sector Japan-based companies dominated in the 1980s and for most of the 1990s. Elpida was established in 1999, originally as NEC Hitachi Memory, Inc., and took on the Elpida name shortly thereafter. In 1993, it took on the DRAM operations of Mitsubishi Electric Corp., and began working together with Taiwan-based Powerchip Semiconductor (PSC). In early 2007 Elpida and PSC set up a DRAM manufacturing joint-venture company, Rexchip Electronics Corp.
