Elpida to sell unit stake to Taiwan partner: report

CALIFORNIA, USA: Elpida Memory Inc, Japan's biggest maker of DRAM chips, agreed to sell preferred stock in its unit EBS Inc to Taiwanese semiconductor company Walton Advanced Engineering Inc for 3.75 billion yen ($48.27 million), the Nikkei said.

EBS manages funds for its parent and the transaction is expected to be completed in mid-December, the business daily reported.

Walton and Elpida have a long-standing relationship, with the Taiwanese firm assembling and testing DRAM memory chips for the Japanese memory chip manufacturer, the Nikkei said.

With DRAM prices falling nearly 50 percent over the past half year, Elpida's financial condition has soured, the daily said.

Elpida, the world's No. 3 dynamic random-access memory chipmaker, reported a 56.7 billion yen consolidated net loss for the April-September period, the Nikkei reported.

In this environment, Elpida has been selling preferred stock and plowing the proceeds directly into its business, the newspaper said.

Funds obtained through selling EBS shares to Walton will be partly used for debt repayment and equipment purchase, the Nikkei reported.