Kioxia and LITE-ON delay SSD business transfer

Coronavirus

LITE-ON has deferred the transfer of its SSD business to Kioxia due to the pandemic, but still expects it to go ahead.

Kioxia, the renamed Toshiba Memory Holdings, said it was buying LITE-ON’s SSD business for $165m in August last year.

That meant Kioxia is getting LITE-ON’s brands such as Plextor, operations, assets including equipment, workers, intellectual property, technology, client and supplier relationships and inventories, and access to its channels. These include LITE-ON’s relationships with Dell and other PC suppliers..

However, LITE-ON has announced that “unfinished integration works caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak” has caused a delay from the original target date of April 1st, 2020. Kioxia has SSD production lines in the Philippines and the pandemic caused these to be closed on March 18.

LITE-ON has engaged in what it describes as good faith discussions with Kioxia and “does not expect any adverse impact to the SSD operations will be caused by the deferral of the closing date.”

Blocks & Files expects the transfer to complete by the end of the year, barring unforeseen circumstances.