Toshiba Resumes Talks Over Contentious Sale of Microchip Unit<br />Last month, Toshiba said it would sell a stake in the unit to a consortium of investors from Japan, the United States<br />and South Korea, anchored by financial firms with close links to the Japanese government.<br />But on Thursday, Toshiba said in an emailed statement<br />that because it had not reached a final agreement with the buyers it selected last month for the NAND business, “we have started discussion with other suitors.”<br />That has left the door open for Western Digital, which has seized the opportunity to press ahead<br />with its own bid, made in partnership with the American investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.<br />Toshiba’s announcement on Thursday came on the eve of an arbitration hearing in the dispute with Western Digital, with a hefty prize at stake: Whichever eventually wins<br />control of the microchip unit will become a major player in NAND flash memory, the technology used to store data in millions of cellphones and digital devices.<br />By JONATHAN SOBLEJULY 13, 2017<br />TOKYO — Toshiba, the struggling Japanese technology conglomerate, has been locked for<br />months in a complex dance over the sale of its $18 billion microchip business.<br />Toshiba needs money from the microchip sale to fill a financial hole left by losses on nuclear power projects in the United States.
