Chip manufacturer Tsinghua Unigroup, part of a holding wholly owned by the Chinese government, has made a $23 billion bid for American chip manufacturer Micron. Should the acquisition proceed it will be the largest acquisition of a foreign company by a Chinese organization.
Tsinghua Unigroup has reported its bid in a letter to Micron, the Wall Street Journal claims based on information of sources familiar with the plans. Micron has stated it hasn't received any bids and doesn't want to further comment on the news.
Micron takes the second place in the memory market, after Samsung. The company has annual sales of more than $ 16 billion, but is struggling with falling revenues by low DRAM prices. Any acquisition would probably only take place after thorough investigations by the US government. Acquisitions of American technology companies by China are sensitive. Tsinghua Unigroup already has a large stake in HP's network branch in China.
Conversely, Intel has a 20 percent stake in the Tsinghua Unigroup, which was founded in 1988 from Tsinghua University. In 2013, Tsinghua Unigroup acquired two major Chinese chip companies. The chip company is part of Tsinghua Holding, a holding company wholly owned by the Chinese state.
Besides manufacturing DRAM memory, Micron also manufacturers NAND flash memory together with Intel in its IM Flash joint venture.
