The Apple logo at the entrance to the Fifth Avenue Apple store in New York. AFP PHOTO | DON EMMERT
Apple Inc is considering teaming up with
its supplier Foxconn to bid for Toshiba Corp's semiconductor business,
public broadcaster NHK said on Friday - the latest twist in the sale of
the world's second-biggest flash memory chipmaker.
Apple
is considering investing at least several billion dollars to take a
stake of more than 20 per cent in a plan that would have Toshiba
maintain a partial stake to keep the business under US and Japanese
control, NHK reported, citing an unidentified source.
The
proposal is aimed at allaying the Japanese government's concerns over
any transfer of sensitive technology to investors it deems a risk to
national security, it said.
Apple was not immediate
available to comment. Taiwan's Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai
Precision Industry, declined to comment.
The report
comes as Western Digital Corp, Toshiba's partner and one of the bidders
of its chip business, warned this week that the Japanese firm is
violating a joint venture contract in plans to sell to its chip unit,
and urged that it be given exclusive negotiating rights.
Toshiba has narrowed down the field of bidders for its chip unit to four suitors, sources have said previously.
hey
are US chipmaker Broadcom Ltd, which has partnered with private equity
firm Silver Lake Partners LP; South Korean chip maker SK Hynix; Foxconn,
the world's largest contract electronics maker, and Western Digital.
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