UPDATED 21:23 EDT / MAY 17 2018

INFRA

China agrees to Toshiba memory business sale after all

China’s government has said it isn’t planning to block the sale of Toshiba Corp.’s memory business to a consortium led by U.S. private equity firm Bain Capital.

The announcement from China’s antitrust authorities means that the sale is all set to be finalized by the end of next month, following clearance from regulatory bodies in the U.S. and the E.U.

“Today we received written approval for the acquisition of Toshiba Memory Corporation from the antitrust authorities in China,” Bain said in a statement. “All antitrust approvals have now been received and we are looking forward to closing this investment.”

The news was separately confirmed by Toshiba, which said the deal should conclude on June 1. “The parties today confirmed that all required antitrust approvals have been granted, and that all conditions for the closing of the transaction are now satisfied,” Toshiba added.

China’s decision to give the deal the thumbs up comes as a surprise, as Toshiba recently said it had “mostly given up” on the $18 billion sale because Beijing authorities indicated they would not give it the green light.

China’s refusal reportedly was linked to its ongoing trade dispute with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, but it seems officials have now done an about-face. Toshiba was apparently so convinced the deal was dead and buried that it had even developed contingency plans that included possibly taking its memory business public or offering its sale to an alternative consortium.

The good news for Toshiba is that those contingency plans are no longer necessary. Still, the deal will put the Japanese firm in the rather odd position of competing directly against its former subsidiary. Toshiba Memory Corp. has its own flash storage business that is increasingly pushing into data center markets, threatening Toshiba’s own traditional hard drive operations.

Image: Toshiba

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