NEC, Hitachi to sell part of stakes in Elpida Memory

August 31, 2005 – Elpida Memory Inc. said yesterday its two largest shareholders, NEC Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., will sell part of their stakes in Elpida, a supplier of DRAM chips in Japan, during the current fiscal year to next March 31, reported Kyodo News International.

NEC will reduce its stake to 13.89% from the current 23.84% by selling 9.6 million Elpida shares to Daiwa Securities SMBC Co., which plans to sell them to institutional investors. Hitachi’s stake will fall to 19.70% from 23.84%.

After the deals, Hitachi and NEC will become the No. 1 and No. 2 shareholders in Elpida, respectively. Both will stop treating the DRAM maker as an equity-value affiliate, but their business ties will be unaffected, the DRAM supplier said.

Elpida did not disclose other details, including the value of stock sales by NEC and Hitachi.

Given Elpida’s closing price of 3,330 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Tuesday, NEC will sell its stake for some 32 billion yen and Hitachi for 13.3 billion.

Elpida was created through the 1999 merger of the DRAM divisions of NEC and Hitachi.

POST A COMMENT

Easily post a comment below using your Linkedin, Twitter, Google or Facebook account. Comments won't automatically be posted to your social media accounts unless you select to share.