“Apple Inc. has sought to stop Western Digital Corp. from taking control of Toshiba Corp’s chip business by threatening not to buy its products in the future, people with knowledge of the deal said,” Taro Fuse reports for Reuters. “Apple, which uses Toshiba’s NAND flash memory chips in its iPhones, is concerned about losing pricing power if Western Digital is running the operation, the sources said on Friday.”
“However, if Western Digital remains a minority investor in the business, Apple, a top customer for Toshiba chips, is offering around 50 billion yen ($460 million) to a group including the U.S. firm to help finance a bid, one source said,” Fuse reports. “Western Digital, which jointly invests in Toshiba’s key chip plant, is leading a $17-18 billion bid for the chip business, sources familiar with the talks have said.”
“Toshiba executives, fearing that Western Digital was angling to eventually take over the chip business, are demanding that the U.S. company promise to limit the size of its stake in the company, sources said, requesting anonymity as talks were confidential,” Fuse reports. “Last week, Toshiba said it had not yet narrowed the pool of suitors and was also looking at a bid from U.S. private equity firm Bain as well as one from Taiwan’s Foxconn. All three bids have involved Apple, Toshiba’s key memory chip customer, sources said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s in the mix whichever way Toshiba goes.
SEE ALSO:
Foxconn details plan to acquire Toshiba chips unit; Apple would own 20 percent – September 7, 2017
Bain Capital brings in Apple for last-minute $18 billion bid for Toshiba chip unit – August 30, 2017
Apple and Amazon to back Foxconn on Toshiba chip bid, Hon Hai Chairman Terry Gou says – June 5, 2017
Apple may bid for big stake in Toshiba – April 17, 2017
U.S. suitors get major advantage as Japan to vet bidders in Toshiba chip sale over national security risks – March 10, 2017
I own stock in both, but I hope Western Digital Corp wins out. They have a great company over the years and have great product.
Western Digital could have bought Toshiba’s chip division months ago. Instead, it’s playing games with Toshiba in order to diminish the value of the struggling company, thereby allowing WD to buy their chip division for cheap. Dirty trickery.
I hope WD loses the bid.
If they’re smart enough to play the game to win why would you not favor them as a company?
It comes down to the usual dividing line. What’s more important?
A. Game Playing?
OR
B. Humane Behavior?
BizTard often pride themselves on their ruthlessness. From my POV, its garbage like that which inspires retributional garbage in the form of trade unions, communism, ad nauseam.
I am a staunch fanatic of humane capitalism. It fits into my ideal realm of Long Term Thinking = Long Term Success.
Western Digital is acting without conscience, at least from my limited perspective via the usual news sources. Therefore, I’m NOT in favor of them winning the bid. Toshiba has creative work to do. Being hobbled and screwed over by WD to the detriment of Toshiba’s future makes no sense to anyone but selfish WD.
I agree, Derek. I think for long term success, a company must just Do The Right Thing©. Lies, cheats, stealing, corruption, etc. won’t win out.
I could write up a lecture about what’s been going on in the investment market over the last twenty years. The summary word is SCOURING whereby extreme short-term thinking has been used as a method of sucking up as much cash as possible with zero regard for the consequences to anyone but the parasite investors. The culmination was the 2007 perpetration of fraudulent sub-prime (aka non-prime) mortgages and their sale to sucker companies, leading to worldwide financial collapse. It was literally the generation of NON-EXISTENT MONEY and intentionally selling it to willing, unwitting victims. The mask fell off the fraud and a vast money pit was created that has yet to be refilled with actual value.
If there are professional economists who can provide a better description of this, what I consider. desperate hustle to siphon cash out of the world economy, please post! I am but an amateur observer.
For those interested in watching this history of this catastrophic act of financial parasitism, start with articles dated from April 2007 onward regarding the daily dealings of Goldman Sachs, who were prime creators and sellers of sub-prime loans.
There’s also an excellent movie about a flip side of this parasitism whereby a group of investors figured out the ongoing SCAM and bet on it’s success, resulting in yet another sucking in of vast non-existent money:
The Big Short
IOW: Parasitic capitalism = Economic Collapse = No Financial Future.
So, to those who also have no regard for the consequences of their business actions, I hear by point at you and call you PSYCHOPATH. Read all of the above again if you don’t yet understand why. Such people are what we call INHUMAN.
Apple as hordes of cash over seas, they should just purchase the devision out rite with some walking around money and have full control of that part of the business.