Bain Capital Eyeing Toshiba Memory's TSE Listing in 3 Years

Tokyo, Oct. 5 (Jiji Press)--Yuji Sugimoto, head of Bain Capital's operations in Japan, said Thursday that the U.S. private equity fund is aiming to get Toshiba Memory Corp. listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in three years. "We'll invest hundreds of billions of yen in Toshiba Memory every year" to help the firm win international competition, he told a press conference in Tokyo. Late last month, a Japanese-U.S.-South Korean consortium led by Bain Capital signed a deal to buy Toshiba Memory, the prized flash memory unit of struggling Japanese electronics and machinery giant Toshiba Corp. <6502>. On legal actions taken by Western Digital Corp., Toshiba's flash memory business partner, to block Toshiba's sale of the unit, Sugimoto said that reaching a settlement will be a goal, indicating Bain Capital's readiness to hold dialogue with the U.S. hard disk drive maker. The consortium, also including South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix Inc. and U.S. technology firm Apple Inc., will buy Toshiba Memory for 2 trillion yen. After the completion of the acquisition procedures, Toshiba Memory will be held 49.9 pct by Bain Capital in terms of voting rights, 40.2 by Toshiba and 9.9 pct by major Japanese precision equipment maker Hoya Corp. <7741>. Sugimoto dismissed concerns about the possibility of SK Hynix's participation in the consortium leading to an outflow of the Toshiba group's sophisticated flash memory technology, saying that there is no problem because the South Korean company will be banned from accessing Toshiba Memory's classified information. Under the acquisition contract, SK Hynix is prohibited from obtaining a voting rights stake of over 15 pct in Toshiba Memory for the next 10 years, Sugimoto said, adding that there is no plan for joint memory chip development with SK Hynix. END