Rumor: Apple considered a potential bidder for Toshiba Memory business

While speculation on bidders for Toshiba’s NAND business has centered on Broadcom, as well as Micron, Western Digital and SK Hynix, Apple may be among the bidders as well, according to a Japanese publication.

Barron’s notes that a Google translation of Yomiuri Shimbun suggests such a purchase is interesting Apple as well. Fair value for Toshiba Memory may be around ¥1T, though Toshiba would like to see ¥2T (about $17.9 billion), and that’s the price reports are attaching to the Broadcom/Silver Lake bid. An Apple acquisition of Toshiba Memory would allow it to lock in memory technology for its iPhone and other products, Chris DeMuth Jr. writes for Seeking Alpha. Micron and SK Hynix face antitrust issues while Foxconn faces national security issues. 

Why is Toshiba interested in selling part or all of its memory chip business? The drastic measures are said to be just some of the tough choices the Japanese conglomerate will have to take as proceeds from the sale are likely to only cover part of a charge that domestic media has put at $6 billion. Still battered by a 2015 accounting scandal, Toshiba was plunged back into crisis when it emerged late last year that it had to account for huge cost overruns at a U.S. power plant construction business recently acquired by its Westinghouse division.