January 19, 2004 – Renesas Technology Corp., the JV between Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric, has reportedly signed Goldman Sachs and Daiwa SMBC to manage its initial public offering later this year.

A story in Reuters claims a source indicated the size of the offering could rival that of NEC Electronics, which raked in $1.3 billion to become Japan’s largest IPO of 2003. Last month Renesas revealed its 2004 capex of $1.15 billion, up 37% from 2003, in part to boost production capacity of flash memory chips.

Renesas’ news comes less than a week after Elpida Memory reportedly signed Deutsche Bank and Daiwa SMBC to help launch a $940 million IPO, to be launched later this year.