Toshiba Chip Deal: Bain Says Dell, Other Firms Join Its Bid

Bain Capital, now in the lead to buy Toshiba's prized memory chip unit, said on Friday it has brought in Dell 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 and the offer was worth JPY 2.4 trillion ($22 billion), including a JPY 200 billion 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 "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".

© Thomson Reuters 2017