Stefan Mileschin

The latest and possibly final round of bidding for Toshiba's memory business concluded today with Toshiba's board selecting a consortium led by private equity firm Bain Capital as the preferred bidder, over competing bids from Western Digital and Foxconn.

Toshiba has spent most of 2017 trying to sell off their thriving flash memory business in order to offset devastating losses suffered by their Westinghouse nuclear power division. Those financial problems came to a head at the end of 2016 with Toshiba admitting that the losses could amount to several billion dollars, resulting in their stock price falling by more than 40% over a four day span and their bond ratings being downgraded by Moody's and S&P. As the magnitude of their problems became clearer, Toshiba first planned to spin off their memory business and sell a 20% stake, then revised that to selling a majority stake, and eventually settled on selling it outright. As the second largest manufacturer of NAND flash memory, Toshiba's memory business is valued at around $18 billion.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11855...ortium-for-18b