April 29, 2002 – Seoul, Korea – After hours of deliberation, creditors holding 77.73% of Hynix Semiconductor Inc. approved the plan to sell Hynix’s core memory chip operations to Micron Technology Inc. under the non-binding terms announced last week.

The agreement from creditors comprising more than 75% of Hynix’s outstanding debt of 8.2 trillion won ($6.34 billion) was necessary to approve the non-binding deal, reported Dow Jones. Creditors representing 92% of Hynix debt took part in Monday’s vote, the results of which came out nearly four hours after the meeting started due to delayed counting.

“Korea Exchange Bank appeared to be delaying the announcement of the counting to persuade those who didn’t show up to get the required 75% vote,” said one creditor bank official who attended the meeting.

The non-binding agreement is subject to approval by Hynix creditors and the boards of directors of the two chipmakers by Tuesday. Hynix’s board of directors will meet Tuesday to make a decision.

However, a Hynix company survey showed that more than 90% of its employees oppose its deal to sell its memory chip assets to Micron.

The Korean chipmaker said 4,654 of its employees – of about 13,000 total – responded to an internal e-mail poll, asking if they agree or oppose to the deal. Ninety three percent of the responding employees said they oppose the terms in Hynix’s non-binding memorandum of understanding.

The company said 5% answered in favor of the plan, and 2% didn’t have an opinion even though they replied to the e-mail poll.