OKI to transfer semi shares to ROHM

TOKYO, JAPAN: Rohm Co. Ltd and Oki Electric Ind. Co. Ltd announced that the two companies have reached a basic understanding of OKI spinning-off its semiconductor business through a company split, and transfer 95 percent of its issued shares to ROHM. The two companies will sign a definitive agreement based on the premise of OKI gaining approval of spinning-off the semiconductor business at its annual shareholder meeting.

OKI has been implementing company-wide initiatives to revamp its business structure to increase corporate value and gain competitive edge as competition becomes more global and fiercer. As part of the initiatives, OKI has been discussing on how to expand its semiconductor business.

On the other hand, ROHM has been looking for opportunities to improve its corporate value to advance as an IDM semiconductor company with a wide range of product portfolio with competitive edge. Based on this background, the two companies agreed on the transfer of OKI’s semiconductor business shares. Both companies will enhance their sales skills by maximizing the sales network, technology and quality support network both in Japan and overseas.

“We are pleased to announce this basic understanding with ROHM, a company with high esteem,” said Naoki Sato, Executive Vice President at OKI. “While leveraging OKI’s semiconductor fabs for products based on our advanced technologies such as low power consumption, high voltage processing, digital/analog mixed processing and small-size packaging technologies, OKI will utilize Rohm’s leading-edge production processes for products such as system LSIs and logic LSIs that currently use outside fabs.“

“With this share transfer, we can create a synergy effect to strengthen both sales and profit for the two companies by complementing each other, as the overlap of our products is relatively small,” said Satoshi Sawamura, Managing Director at ROHM. “We will become more competitive as we expand our product line up and maximize our advanced production capabilities.”