Toshiba, Fujitsu ink HDD business transfer deal

Peter Dinham
Sunday, 03 May 2009 17:42

IT Industry - Strategy

Toshiba and Fujitsu have concluded a deal that will see Fujitsu’s hard disk drive (HDD) business transferred to Toshiba by the end of June this year.

A joint statement by the two companies announcing the deal says they have concluded a definitive agreement on the transfer of Fujitsu’s HDD business following a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by the companies in mid February this year.

Toshiba and Fujitsu say they will now seek to complete the business transfer by the target date of 1July to a new company to be formed, the Toshiba Storage Device Corporation (TSDC). The new company will incorporate Fujitsu’s HDD related business and functions.

In addition, Fujitsu’s HDD manufacturing subsidiaries, Fujitsu Computer Products Corporation of the Philippines (FCPP) and Fujitsu (Thailand) (FTC), will become Toshiba Storage Device (Philippines) (TSDP) and Toshiba Storage Device (Thailand) (TSDT), and the HDD related business of Yamagata Fujitsu Limited will become Toshiba Storage Device Yamagata Corporation (TSDY).

According to the statement, upon completion of the transfer, these three companies will become wholly owned subsidiaries of TSDC, with Toshiba handling the sales and marketing of all HDD products, including Fujitsu’s, and entrust all aspects of design, R&D, quality assurance, production technology, and technology support to TSDC.

The two companies also announced that Fujitsu’s sales and marketing offices outside of Japan, with the exception of some offices in certain regions, will be transferred to Toshiba’s overseas business operations. Toshiba will acquire a stake of 80.1 percent in TSDC by the target date of 1 July 1.and make it a Toshiba Group subsidiary.

Fujitsu will continue to hold a stake of 19.9 percent until the end of December 2010, after which the company will transfer its stake to Toshiba, at which point TSDC will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba.