SAN FRANCISCO—U.S. memory chip vendor Micron Technology Inc. confirmed Thursday (May 10) it is engaged in discussions with trustees for bankrupt Japanese DRAM vendor Elpida Memory Inc. in an attempt to acquire Elpida.
Micron (Boise, Idaho) has been
widely reported to be among the only remaining bidders for Elpida, which filed for bankruptcy in February and put itself up for sale through an unusual auction process. But Micron had previously declined to confirm the reports.
Micron said it made the announcement following a Thursday approval by the Tokyo District Court allowing Elpida's trustees to negotiate an agreement with Micron. If an agreement is reached, Micron would become Elpida's sponsor and acquire Elpida's entire business in accordance with the corporate reorganization proceedings, Elpida said.
According to Micron, Elpida decided to move forward with Micron as its sponsor after the auction process, which closed last week.
After making an initial bid to acquire Elpida, SK Hynix Inc.
reportedly dropped out of the bidding last week. According to reports, the only other final bid was a combined bid from Chinese investment firm Hony Capital teamed with U.S. private equity firm TPG.
Analysts have speculated that a Micron acquisition of Elpida would remake the DRAM landscape, substantially increasing Micron's market share while also reducing the total amount of DRAM capacity, which would improve pricing. Many observers believe that Micron would convert some of Elpida's fab capacity to NAND flash memory production.