東芝以180億美元將閃存業(yè)務(wù)售予貝恩財(cái)團(tuán)

Toshiba’s board has agreed to sell its prized Nand flash memory chip unit to an international consortium led by the US private equity group Bain Capital in a ¥2.1tn ($18.9bn) deal designed to rescue the Japanese conglomerate from delisting.

東芝(Toshiba)董事會(huì)以180億美元將其寶貴的閃存芯片業(yè)務(wù)Nand出售給一個(gè)由美國私人股本集團(tuán)貝恩資本(Bain Capital)牽頭的國際財(cái)團(tuán)，旨在挽救這家日本集團(tuán)免于退市。

People close to the winning group, which includes an investment of at least a $3bn by Apple and smaller commitments from Dell, Seagate, Kingston and the South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix, said they were in the process of ironing out minor details but were likely to sign the deal later on Wednesday.

該財(cái)團(tuán)包括蘋果(Apple)至少30億美元的投資，還有來自戴爾(Dell)、希捷科技(Seagate Technology)、金士頓(Kingston)和韓國芯片制造商SK海力士(SK Hynix)的較小規(guī)模投資。

Toshiba’s board has come under intense pressure from the company’s biggest lenders, a trio of Japanese banks, to sell its prized asset ahead of a March 2018 deadline. The groups needs the proceeds to plug a huge hole in its shareholder equity created by massive writedowns on its US nuclear business.

東芝董事會(huì)一直面臨著來自該公司最大貸款銀行的巨大壓力：日本三家銀行要求東芝在2018年3月最后期限之前出售其寶貴資產(chǎn)。它們需要用出售所得來堵住東芝美國核業(yè)務(wù)大規(guī)模減記造成的股東權(quán)益的巨大缺口。

The scale of the writedowns, coupled with the aftermath of a 2015 accounting scandal at Toshiba, have put one of Japan’s most famous industrial conglomerates at risk of being delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

大規(guī)模資產(chǎn)減記再加上東芝2015年會(huì)計(jì)丑聞的余波，讓這家日本最知名的工業(yè)集團(tuán)之一有可能從東京證交所( Tokyo Stock Exchange)退市。

Analysts say the sale of the chip unit should remove that threat, though the actual completion of the deal is expected to be delayed by both anti-trust scrutiny and a raft of legal action launched by Toshiba’s joint venture partner in the chip-making business, US group Western Digital.

分析人士表示，該芯片業(yè)務(wù)的出售應(yīng)會(huì)消除這種威脅，不過由于反壟斷審查以及東芝芯片制造合資公司的合作伙伴美國西部數(shù)據(jù)(Western Digital)提起諸多法律訴訟，預(yù)計(jì)這筆出售交易的實(shí)際完成日期將推遲。

Two Japanese state-backed financial institutions — the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan and the Development Bank of Japan — will join as investors once Toshiba and the winning consortium have settled legal differences over a joint venture with Western Digital.

一旦獲勝財(cái)團(tuán)解決了與西部數(shù)據(jù)合資公司有關(guān)的法律分歧，兩家得到政府支持的日本金融機(jī)構(gòu)——日本產(chǎn)業(yè)革新機(jī)構(gòu)(Innovation Network Corporation of Japan)和日本開發(fā)銀行(Development Bank of Japan)將加盟入股。

A rival bid from the Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn was described by people close to the process as “highly competitive until very late in the day”.

據(jù)知情人士稱，來自臺(tái)灣科技巨頭富士康(Foxconn)的競標(biāo)“直到當(dāng)天最后一刻都極具競爭力”。