14 DAY TRIAL // The infamous Chinese state-owned mammoth corporation, Tsinghua Unigroup has laid its hungry eyes this time on the veteran, but financially shaky, giants Toshiba and SanDisk.
After attempting to buy American NAND manufacturer Micron in "one gulp" and ending up ultimately being blocked by the U.S. government, Tsinghua isn't done attempting to throw money around in order to forcefully buy precious NAND patents owned by companies like Toshiba and SanDisk.
The move is quite obvious since the Chinese affair didn't work out as planned during talks that targeted buying Micron, deals that ended with the Chinese being unequivocally refused by the always vigilant CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) and considered the case closed for now.
The main reason why Tsinghua has shifted their interest towards Toshiba and SanDisk, however, is quite simple. These are easy targets to prey, since both deal in NAND flash drive manufacturing and one of them, Toshiba, passes through serious financial woes as a result of major corruption scandal that saw the company's previous CEO being sacked together with its entire upper staff.
As a result, Toshiba announced that it would kill its TV and PC businesses to conserve cash, and is looking for partners in continuing its nuclear contracts with the Japanese state.
Tsinghua pushes onwards with Micron deal as well
Tsinghua, on the other hand, is in the middle of a major Chinese drive of building a solid NAND and DRAM industry on Chinese soil by apparently any means, and sums of money, necessary. Last time Tsinghua held talks with Micron, it offered the staggering sum of $23 billion in order to guarantee an acquisition, but the deal was ultimately shut down by CFIUS once the U.S. government considered the Micron acquisition a matter of national security.
According to DigiTimes, the Chinese continue their efforts to buy the precious know-how that Micron holds by acquiring partial stakes of the company, like it did with HP. If this fails, Toshiba will most likely be their next target.
However, since Toshiba owns all of the nuclear plant know-how in Japan, it is very likely this won't work either as the Japanese authorities will intervene as well to stop this move. SanDisk might ultimately be the possible acquisition by Tsinghua, but there are slight chances for the Chinese state-owned giant to consider such small fish sufficient.