Recently, South Korea's SK Hynix (SK Hynix) said it was unwilling to support the business combination of Japan's Kioxia Holdings and US rival Western Digital (Western Digital) memory chips.。And since SK Hynix indirectly holds a stake in Kioxia, its license is necessary to advance the merger。

Kioxia and Western Digital are understood to be pushing for loans from financial institutions as early as this week, while SK Hynix's refusal is likely to affect talks with lenders.。

Western Digital will spin off its memory chip business, merge it with Kioxia to form a holding company, merger proposal says。Based on enterprise value, Kioxia will hold 63% of the shares, compared with 37% in Western data.。After capital adjustment, Western Digital shareholders will eventually hold 50.1%, Kioxia is 49.9%。

The new company will be registered in the United States and headquartered in Japan, with the goal of listing on Nasdaq and the Tokyo Stock Exchange, according to relevant sources.。The president of the new company will be Nobuo Hayasaka, the current president of Kioxia, and the majority of the board of directors will be represented by Kioxia.。

SK Hynix ranks second in the global NAND flash memory market, behind Samsung Electronics。Although Kioxia and Western Digital are currently ranked third and fourth respectively, the merger may be neck-and-neck with Samsung, while SK Hynix will fall to third, behind the previous two leading companies.。Not only that, but because SK Hynix has been looking forward to a future partnership with Kioxia, there is resistance to the merger.。

SK Hynix said its company had solicited a partnership with Japan's Soft Bank Group ("SoftBank") as an alternative to Kioxia's merger with Western Digital.。It is understood that SoftBank is not currently involved in merger negotiations, with Arm, a British semiconductor design and software company, and has positioned artificial intelligence as its core business.。

At present, SK Hynix is developing DRAM products called "high-bandwidth memory," which can realize high-speed and large-capacity data processing through chip stacking.。For SoftBank, by partnering with SK Hynix and then joining forces with Kioxia, the group has a good chance of acquiring the semiconductor storage technology needed for its data center business.。