Toshiba Nears Final Stages of Negotiations to Acquire Fujitsu’s Hard Drive Biz

From X-bit Labs: Toshiba Corp., a maker of various electronics, is reportedly in the final stages of discussions to acquire hard disk drive (HDD) business of Fujitsu. The move will expand potentially profitable business for Hitachi and will take the money losing unit away from Fujitsu. What is surprising is that estimated cost of the deal is below the price of Fujitsu’s HDD biz which was discussed during Fujitsu – Western Digital talks earlier.

“It’s true that we are in talks with Fujitsu on the matter, but nothing has been decided at the moment,” Keisuke Ohmori, a spokesman at Toshiba in Tokyo, said by telephone in an interview with Bloomberg news-agency. Fujitsu makes no secret that it is in talks with multiple companies to sell off its hard drive business unit.

According to Nikkei business daily, Toshiba is projected to pay Fujitsu approximately ¥40 billion ($557.84 million) for hard disk drive business of the latter. The sum is much lower compared to the sum that was discussed when Fujitsu was in talks with Western Digital over its HDD unit, which means that Fujitsu wants to get rid of the business at any cost. Back in October ’08 Western Digital was rumored to be planning to acquire Fujitsu’s HDD business unit along with plants in Japan, the Philippines and Thailand for ¥70 billion to ¥100 billion, which was from US$661 million to US$944 million at the time. At present, the actual price of Fujitsu’s HDD business unit would be from US$775.6 million to US$1.108 billion.

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