Bain says Dell, other tech firms join its bid for Toshiba chip unit

Sliding value: Toshiba Corp's market value is currently 973 billion yen (RM38.2bil), less than half its value in mid-December. Just under a decade ago, the firm was worth almost 5 trillion yen (RM196bil).

TOKYO: Bain Capital, now in the lead to buy Toshiba Corp’s prized memory chip unit, said on Friday it has brought in Dell Inc and other tech firms as new members of its consortium to bolster its bid.

Toshiba said this week it has agreed to focus on selling the world’s No. 2 NAND producer to a group led by Bain and South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix Inc but it did not rule out a deal with other suitors including Western Digital.

Sources have said that the Bain group also included Apple Inc and the offer was worth 2.4 trillion yen (US$22 billion), including a 200 billion yen investment in infrastructure.

The US private equity firm said in a statement that in addition to Apple, other members also included Dell, memory product maker Kingston Technology and data storage firm Seagate Technology Plc ”who will provide capital in a sign of industry-wide support for an independent Toshiba”.

It did not give a breakdown of how much each firm was prepared to invest.

Addressing opposition from Toshiba’s joint-venture partner Western Digital, which argues any deal will need its consent, Bain said it would honour ”all the contractual terms of the Western Digital joint venture”. - Reuters