A group of investors led by Bain Capital is going to buy the world's second-largest manufacturer of flash memory chips, the Toshiba Corporation. According to Toshiba, Bain and its partners are already negotiating. The sale is set to $18 US Billion Dollar and it’s sold to a consortium in which Western Digital (who last year acquired Sandisk as well) has a large stake.


Toshiba has received offers from three different groups to buy a portion of the chip business. In its announcement on Wednesday, Toshiba said the Bain group had submitted a new bid, putting it ahead of rivals led by Western Digital (the digital storage company based in the United States) and Foxconn (the manufacturer based in Taiwan that makes phones and other devices for Apple and other global brand names).

The company hopes to conclude the deal by the end of September, but the negotiations would not be exclusive. In order words, Western Digital or Foxconn could still submit a new second offer. According to Western Digital, which bought SanDisk last year, the agreements might be violated because the company has a joint venture with Toshiba and they are working together on the same technology.

At the moment there isn't any additional information but we will surely keep an eye on it.



Source: NYTimes