Japan’s Toshiba Corp (TSE: 6502) agreed on Wednesday to sell its prized semiconductor business to a group led by U.S. private equity firm Bain Capital LP, Bloomberg reports.
The world’s No. 2 producer of NAND memory chips will be sold for about $18 billion.
Earlier Toshiba was leaning towards selling the business to its U.S. joint venture partner Western Digital Corp (NASDAQ: WDC).
Western Digital has previously initiated legal action against Toshiba, arguing that no deal can be done without its consent due to its position as Toshiba’s joint venture chip partner.
Toshiba replied the agreement assumes the deal would weather legal challenges raised by Western Digital.
The sale would boost Toshiba’s finances by 740 billion yen after taxes. That would pull it out of negative shareholder equity, a key step it aims to achieve by March to remain listed.
Bain Capital has partnered with South Korea’s SK Hynix Inc. and brought in U.S. buyers of Toshiba chips such as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Dell Inc. (NYSE: DVMT) to bolster its bid. Memory product maker Kingston Technology (NASDAQ: KINS) and data storage firm Seagate Technology Plc (NASDAQ: STX) are also part of the group.