Japan’s Kioxia, the world’s third-largest NAND flash memory company, is going public (IPO). This is interpreted as a move to secure investment funds and enhance competitiveness by evaluating the company’s value highly as the semiconductor industry recovers. SK Hynix, which previously invested a total of 4 trillion won in Kioxia, is also expected to recover a large portion of its investment.
According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun on the 23rd, Kioxia Holdings submitted an application for listing to the Tokyo Stock Exchange on the same day. It is aiming for an October listing. It is reported that Kioxia is aiming for a corporate value of over 1.5 trillion yen (about 13.73 trillion won) in this listing. If the IPO is successful as planned, it will be the largest in the Japanese stock market this year. Last year, the largest listing was semiconductor equipment company Kokusai, which was recognized as having a corporate value of 424 billion yen.
Kioxia plans to use the newly raised funds to meet the surge in memory demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) industry.
Kioxia was established in 2018 as a spin-off from Toshiba’s memory division. At that time, a consortium led by the American private equity fund Bain Capital and participated by SK Hynix invested in Kioxia and currently owns a 56% stake. Toshiba owns a 41% stake. SK Hynix invested 2.7 trillion won in the consortium and spent 1.3 trillion won on acquiring Kioxia convertible bonds (CB), investing a total of 4 trillion won.
Kioxia’s listing was also pursued in 2020, but fell through due to the worsening business conditions caused by the US-China trade friction. Later, as business conditions recovered due to the recent surge in demand for AI-driven memory, the listing was pursued again. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said, “As demand for memory for AI data centers expands and (semiconductor) investment competition intensifies, they are accelerating fund raising.” According to market research firm TrendForce, Kioxia ranked third in the global NAND market in the first quarter of this year (January to March) with a 12.4% share. First-place Samsung Electronics had 36.7%, and second-place SK Hynix had 22.2%.
Reporter Park Hyeon-ik [email protected]
-
- great
- 0dog
-
- I’m sad
- 0dog
-
- I’m angry
- 0dog
-
- I recommend it
- dog
Hot news right now
2024-08-24 14:39:32