Sept 28 (Reuters) – PsiQuantum is aiming to deliver its first commercial quantum computing system in under six years, its CEO said as the startup announced a partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy to develop advanced fridges for its machines.
Chief Executive Jeremy O’Brien said the timeline has been made possible by the company’s breakthroughs, including its work with chip manufacturing partner GlobalFoundries (GFS.O).
“The first system that’s actually capable of solving important problems that people want to know the answer to – that’s just a handful of years away,” he said in an interview.
Asked if that meant less than six years, he replied: “Certainly less than six.”
Estimates for the development of practical quantum computing by other experts in the field typically put it at a decade or even 20 or more years away.
The deal with the U.S. Department of Energy will enable PsiQuantum to use facilities at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to design the fridges or “cryogenic quantum modules” which are necessary as quantum computers run at temperatures close to absolute zero.
“We’ve (now) got access to another several orders, a couple of orders of magnitude more cooling power through Stanford’s linear accelerator,” O’Brien said. “You’re in a night and day type of world when it comes to cooling power.”
Investors have granted the Palo Alto, California-based startup a $3.15 billion valuation and infused it with $700 million thus far.
PsiQuantum’s goal is to string together a number of quantum modules to behave like a data center. The company needs to reach roughly 1 million quantum bits, or qubits, to be of practical use, O’Brien said.
Silicon Valley giants such as IBM (IBM.N), Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O) are also seeking to crack the technology as it could help solve complex computational problems that existing hardware has trouble with.
Because of the immense computational power in quantum computing, there is a gamut of potential applications from materials science to national security to finance.
PsiQuantum is also working on research into ways to produce cheap and abundant green hydrogen.
Reporting by Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Edwina Gibbs
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TOKYO, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Japan’s Sony (6758.T) logged a hefty drop in first-quarter profit, hurt in part by a weaker performance from its movie division but the entertainment giant remained hopeful about prospects for a record year for its PlayStation 5 console.
Operating profit slid 31% to 253 billion yen ($1.8 billion) in April-June, in line with estimates and also pulled down by lacklustre results from its financial business which had benefited from a property sale in the same period a year earlier.
Profit at its movie division plunged by two-thirds due to lower sales for television content as well as higher marketing costs after the company released more films in theatres.
Sony trimmed its annual sales forecast for the unit by 3% citing the impact of strikes by Hollywood writers and actors, which have affected production of scripted television shows and films.
Once a consumer electronics giant, the conglomerate has transformed itself to focus more on entertainment, developing movies, music and games.
Sony has said it expects to sell 25 million PlayStation 5 consoles this financial year, in what would be a record for a PlayStation device, following the easing of supply chain snarls.
Sales have so far been weaker than expected but the company said promotions starting in July are helping sales momentum.
[1/2]An employee of the consumer electronics retailer chain Bic Camera works at the promotion display of the Sony PlayStation 5 game console and its gaming software, ahead of the game console’s official launch, in Tokyo, Japan November 10, 2020. REUTERS/Issei Kato/File Photo
“We believe that there is ample possibility for us to catch up,” Sony President Hiroki Totoki told reporters.
Cumulative sales of the console have topped 40 million but the company lacks high-profile upcoming first-party titles.
Nintendo last week reported it has sold 18.5 million units of “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” since its release in May, helping drive sales of its aging Switch console.
Sony is also a leading maker of image sensors, which are used in cameras.
The conglomerate had expected a gradual recovery in the smartphone market from the second half of the current financial year but now thinks it will not happen until 2024 at the earliest.
Sony maintained its forecast of a 10% decline in operating profit for the full year.
In May, Sony said it is examining a partial spin-off of its financial unit, which includes life insurance and banking, as it looks to invest further in its entertainment businesses.
($1 = 143.1300 yen)
Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Edwina Gibbs
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LONDON, June 29 (Reuters) – Markets are on the alert to which sectors will buckle under the sharpest jump in interest rates in decades, with big rate moves this month in Britain and Norway a reminder that the tightening is not over.
Central banks may need longer to lower inflation and a fresh bout of financial turbulence could make the process even more protracted, the International Monetary Fund warns.
Stability has returned since March’s banks turmoil, but warning lights are flashing elsewhere and tensions in Russia provide another possible trigger for stress.
Here is a look at some of the pressure points.
1/ REAL ESTATE: PART 1
Just as hopes for an end to Federal Reserve rate hikes boost the U.S. housing market, European residential property is suffering under rate hikes.
UK rates have jumped to 5% from 0.25% two years ago and 2.4 million homeowners will roll off cheap fixed rate mortgages onto much higher rates by end-2024, banking trade body UK Finance estimates.
Sweden, where rates rose again on Thursday, is one to watch with most homeowners’ mortgages moving in lockstep with rates.
London Business School economics professor Richard Portes said, euro zone housing markets appear to be “freezing up” as transactions and prices fall. “You can expect worse in 2024 when the full effects of rate hikes come forth,” he said.
2/ REAL ESTATE: PART 2
Having taken advantage of the low rates era to borrow aplenty and buy up property assets, the commercial real estate sector is grappling with higher debt refinancing costs as rates rise.
“The single most important thing is interest rates. But not just interest rates; what it is equally important is the predictability of rates,” said Thomas Mundy, EMEA head of capital markets strategy at real estate firm JLL.
“If we were settled on an interest rate, real estate prices could adjust. But at the moment, the lag in the adjustment to real estate pricing is creating an uncertain environment.”
In Sweden, high debts, rising rates and a wilting economy has produced a toxic cocktail for commercial property.
And HSBC‘s decision to leave London’s Canary Wharf for a smaller office in the City highlights an office downsizing trend rocking commercial real estate markets.
3/ BANK ASSETS
Banks remain in focus as credit conditions tighten.
“There is no place to hide from these tighter financial conditions. Banks feel the pressure of every central bank,” said Lombard Odier Investment Managers’ head of macro Florian Ielpo.
Banks hold two types of balance sheet assets: those meant for liquidity and those that work like savings meant to earn additional value. Rising rates have pushed many of these assets 10%-15% lower than their purchase price, Ielpo said. Should banks need to sell them, unrealised losses would emerge.
Most at risk are banks’ real estate assets. Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell says the Fed is monitoring banks “very carefully” to address potential vulnerabilities.
Lending standards for the average household are also a concern. Ielpo expects consumers will stop paying loan payments in the third and fourth quarters.
“This will be the Achilles heel of the banking sector,” he added.
4/ DEFAULT
Rising rates are taking a toll on corporates as the cost of their debt balloons.
S&P expects default rates for European sub-investment grade companies to rise to 3.6% in March 2024 from 2.8% this March.
Markus Allenspach, head of fixed income research at Julius Baer, notes there were as many defaults globally in the first five months of 2023 as there were during 2022.
French retailer Casino is in debt restructuring talks with its creditors. Sweden’s SBB has been fighting for survival since its shares plunged in May on concern over its financial position.
“We are starting to see distress building up in the corporate space, especially at the low end where you have most floating rate debt,” said S&P Global Ratings’ Nick Kraemer.
5/ RUSSIA AFTER WAGER MUTINY
The Wagner mutiny, the gravest threat to Russia’s Vladimir Putin’s rule to date, might have been aborted, but will long reverberate. Any changes to Russia’s standing – or to the momentum behind the war in Ukraine – could be felt near and far.
There’s the immediate fallout for commodity markets from crude oil to grains, the most sensitive to domestic changes in Russia. And knock on effects, from inflation pressures to risk aversion in case of a major escalation, could have far reaching consequences for countries and corporates already feeling the heat from rising rates.
“Putin can no longer claim to be the guarantor of Russian stability and you don’t get that kind of fragmentation and challenges to the system in a stable and popular regime,” said Tina Fordham, geopolitical strategist and founder of Fordham Global Foresight.
Reporting by Chiara Elisei, Naomi Rovnick, Nell Mackenzie and Karin Strohecker, Graphics by Vincent Flasseur, Kripa Jayaram, Sumanta Sen and Pasit Kongkunakornkul, Editing by Dhara Ranasinghe and Alison Williams
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BEVERLY HILLS, May 2 (Reuters) – Prominent investors including hedge fund and private equity managers at a major industry conference say they are shying away from stocks and real estate amid uncertainty over interest rates, fears of a recession and threat of a U.S. debt default.
Instead, fixed income, which was unpopular when rates were low, is back in favor and seeing strong capital flows into products like bond funds, said fund managers at the Milken Institute Global Conference this week.
Until now, investors made decisions on how to allocate their money based on models that looked at correlations between asset classes, statistics, returns and volatilities over the past 20 years, said Elizabeth Burton, a managing director and client investment strategist at Goldman Sachs.
“Things are very different now,” she said.
The shift in focus has been quick and is forcing investors to move away from some assets that had been popular recently. Six months ago, real estate was seen as the “savior asset class” but that is no longer the case, Burton said.
Hedge fund and private equity fund managers plus top banking executives gathered at the conference that began Sunday with debates on how much more the Federal Reserve should raise interest rates and when rate cuts might begin.
Attendees also discussed whether federal regulators should raise FDIC deposit insurance after First Republic Bank was seized and sold to JPMorgan, and how markets will react to even higher interest rates and potentially more market volatility.
With the S&P 500 (.SPX) up 7.5% since January after a brutal 2022 when the index tumbled nearly 20% and bonds also fell, fund managers are hoping for more gains – though some at the conference said that smacked of rose-colored glasses.
“You get a good sense of consensus at these conferences,” said Katie Koch, president and CEO of investment firm TCW. “And I think people are still feeling a little too good. People are too happy.”
But some also worried that big companies like Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Apple (AAPL.O) that helped pull the S&P 500 index higher this year may be overvalued.
“I don’t like equities because of the uncertainty,” said Anastasia Titarchuk, chief investment officer at the New York State Common Retirement Fund.
Others warned that companies will soon have to refinance their debt at higher rates, making them less attractive.
Instead, thanks to higher interest rates, fixed income is once again playing a bigger role in portfolios.
“The Fed has helped us put the income back in fixed income,” said Anne Walsh, Chief Investment Officer for Guggenheim Partners Investment Management.
“As a result, we’re actually able to capture at least in the short run some very nice yields.”
Other investors also said secondary private equity funds that purchase assets from primary private equity investors could also become attractive as demand for liquidity rises sharply.
Some investors have not given up on equities, though they caution that portfolio selections need to be made carefully.
“Bottom up fundamental investing, including crunching the numbers, is coming back as the risk-free rate has climbed,” said Alexander Roepers, chief investment officer of investment firm Atlantic Investment Management, referring to the interest rate investors can expect on an investment that carries zero risk.
As investors mulled what lies ahead for markets, the mood was more downbeat than in previous years – though at the conference at least, a wellness area for participants with hug-worthy puppies and massages offered some respite.
Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss, editing by Deepa Babington
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TOKYO, April 25 (Reuters) – Japanese startup ispace inc (9348.T) is preparing to land its Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) spacecraft on the moon early on Wednesday, in what would be the world’s first lunar landing by a private company if it succeeds.
The M1 lander is set to touch down around 1:40 a.m. Japan time (1640 GMT Tuesday) after taking off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a SpaceX rocket in December.
Success would mark a welcome reversal from the recent setbacks Japan has faced in space technology, where it has big ambitions of building a domestic industry, including a goal of sending Japanese astronauts to the moon by the late 2020s.
In one of the biggest blows, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) last month lost its new medium-lift H3 rocket to forced manual destruction after it reached space. That was less than five months since JAXA’s solid-fuel Epsilon rocket failed after launch in October.
The 2.3-metre-tall (7.55 ft) M1 will begin an hour-long landing phase from its current position, in the moon’s orbit some 100 km (62 miles) above the surface moving at nearly 6,000 km/hour (3,700 mph), Chief Technology Officer Ryo Ujiie told a media briefing on Monday.
Ujiie likened the task of slowing down the lander to the correct speed against the moon’s gravitational pull to “stepping on the brakes on a running bicycle at the edge of a ski jumping hill.”
Only the United States, the former Soviet Union and China have soft-landed a spacecraft on the moon, with attempts in recent years by India and a private Israeli company ending in failure.
After reaching the landing site at the edge of Mare Frigoris, in the moon’s northern hemisphere, the M1 is to deploy a two-wheeled, baseball-sized rover developed by JAXA, Japanese toymaker Tomy Co (7867.T) and Sony Group (6758.T), as well as the United Arab Emirates’ four-wheeled “Rashid” Rover.
The M1 is also carrying an experimental solid-state battery made by NGK Spark Plug Co (5334.T), among other objects to gauge how they perform on the moon.
In its second mission scheduled in 2024, the M1 will bring ispace’s own rover, while from 2025, it is set to work with U.S. space lab Draper to bring NASA payloads to the moon, targeting building a permanently staffed lunar colony by 2040.
Shares of the Tokyo-based lunar transportation startup had a blistering market debut on the Tokyo Stock Exchange this month as investors bet its lunar development and transportation business will fit in with Japan’s national policy of defence and space development.
Reporting by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Stephen Coates
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NEW DELHI, April 20 (Reuters) – U.S. tech giant Apple <AAPL.O> could double or triple investments in India, along with exports, over the next few years, a minister said, as the company opened a second store in the world’s biggest smartphone market after China.
Apple mainly assembles iPhones in India through Taiwan contract manufacturers but plans to expand into iPads and AirPods, as it looks to cut reliance on China.
Its iPhones made up more than half of total smartphones worth about $9 billion exported from India between April 2022 and February, data from the India Cellular and Electronics Association shows.
“I am very confident that this Apple-India partnership has a lot of headroom for investments, growth, exports and jobs – doubling and tripling over coming years,” Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the deputy minister for information technology, told Reuters.
His comments came after a meeting on Wednesday with Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook in the capital, New Delhi.
Cook, who also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said Apple was “committed to growing and investing across the country”.
He inaugurated an Apple store in New Delhi on Thursday two days after opening its first outlet in Mumbai, the commercial capital.
“We’ve come here only to see Tim Cook,” said Manika Mehta, 32, an Android phone user who queued at the Delhi store.
About 500 people had gathered for Cook’s brief appearance, in which he spoke with fans and took selfies, as in Mumbai.
“My heart was skipping a beat,” said Reeti Sahai, 45, after taking a selfie. “I’m an Apple addict. I’m drawn to Tim Cook, seeing the man he is and the journey.”
Cook’s visit has drawn extensive media coverage and he has been feted like a Bollywood star, with some people trying to touch his feet in a traditional gesture of respect, while others asked for his autograph.
Apple has previously faced hurdles in opening physical retail stores in the South Asian nation, but its products have been available on e-commerce websites, while its online store opened in 2020.
The new stores open as Indian consumers increasingly look to upgrade devices to glitzier models with richer feature sets, from budget versions that typically cost less than $120.
Still, Apple’s pricey phones are affordable for only a few in India, where it has a market share of just 3%.
Apple has been trying to make India a bigger manufacturing base. Its products, including iPhones, are being assembled in India by contract electronics makers Foxconn (2317.TW), Wistron Corp (3231.TW) and Pegatron Corp (4938.TW).
In January, India’s trade minister said Apple wanted the country to account for up to 25% of its production versus about 5% to 7% now.
Reporting By Krishna N. Das; Editing by Jacqueline Wong
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MADRID, April 5 (Reuters) – Spanish TV star Ana Obregon has revealed that her newly adopted baby daughter, born to an unidentified surrogate mother, was conceived using the frozen sperm of Obregon’s son who died of cancer three years ago.
In Spain, all forms of surrogacy – including so-called “altruistic” ones where no money changes hands – are illegal.
Here’s a look at surrogacy laws in various countries:
* For-profit surrogacy is banned in Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Brazil, Britain and Australia, but they all allow some forms of altruistic surrogacy.
* Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Taiwan and Spain prohibit all forms of surrogacy.
* There is no legislation concerning surrogacy at the federal level in the United States, and some states allow commercial surrogacy arrangements.
* Ukraine was until the Russian invasion an international surrogacy hub, involving thousands of babies each year, according to some estimates, many of them taken abroad by foreigners. Reuters has reported that when the war broke out, some foreign couples travelled to collect their children but others were being cared for in a makeshift clinic by nurses.
* Georgia has also been a popular destination for fertility tourism, though commercial surrogacy is legally available only for heterosexual couples. Georgian law does not recognise surrogate mothers as the delivered child’s parent.
* Surrogacy is also allowed in Russia, though the practice has been criticised by religious groups as commercializing the birth of children and in December 2022, President Vladimir Putin recently signed a law barring foreigners from using Russian surrogate mothers.
* Colombia allows commercial surrogacy, but though the practice is recognized by the constitutional court, there are few regulations. A lawmaker in Colombia’s lower house this year proposed a bill he says would safeguard surrogates, prospective parents and the children themselves.
* For-profit surrogacy flourished in Thailand until 2015 when the country banned it for foreigners after a series of high-profile cases, including an Australian couple who were accused of abandoning a baby born with Down’s syndrome.
* Cambodia had no laws regarding surrogacy, but it cracked down on agencies from 2016 under human trafficking laws.
Reporting by Aislinn Laing, additional reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb in Bogota
Editing by Gareth Jones
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SEOUL, March 15 (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) on Wednesday said it will invest around 300 trillion won ($230 billion) by 2042 to develop what the government called the world’s largest chip-making base, in line with efforts to enhance South Korea’s chip industry.
The amount makes up most of the 550 trillion won in private-sector investment announced by the government on Wednesday, under a strategy that expands tax breaks and infrastructure support to increase the competitiveness of high-tech industries including those involving chips, displays and batteries.
Samsung’s manufacturing additions will include five chip factories and attract up to 150 materials, parts and equipment makers, fabless chipmakers and semiconductor research-and-development organisations, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a statement.
Other countries have announced plans to bolster domestic chip industries, including the United States which last month released details of its CHIPS Act, which offers billions of dollars in subsidies for chipmakers that invest in the country.
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South Korea, home to the world’s two biggest memory chip makers, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix Inc (000660.KS), is seeking to improve supply-chain stability to become a major player in the non-memory chip field, currently dominated by chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (2330.TW) and Intel Corp (INTC.O).
($1 = 1,305.1200 won)
Reporting by Heekyong Yang and Joyce Lee; Editing by Christopher Cushing
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LONDON, March 10 (Reuters) – The easy-cash era is over and its impact is only just starting to felt by world markets yet to see the end of the sharpest interest rate hiking cycle in decades.
Risks were brought to a fore this week as U.S. tech specialist Silicon Valley Bank was shut by California banking regulators on Friday, sparking a rout in bank stocks. SVB was seeking funds to offset a hit on a $21 billion bond portfolio, a result of surging rates, as customers withdrew deposits.
Central banks meanwhile are shrinking their balance sheets by offloading bond holdings as part of their fight against hot inflation.
We look at some potential pressure points.
1/ BANKS
Bank have shot up the worry list as the SVB rout hit bank stocks globally on contagion fears. European banks slid on Friday after JPMorgan (JPM.N) and BofA (BAC.N) shares fell over 5% on Thursday.
SVB’s troubles stemmed from deposit outflows as clients in the tech and healthcare sectors struggled to raise cash elsewhere, raising questions over whether other banks would have to cover deposit outflows with loss-making bond sales too.
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In February, U.S. regulators said U.S. banks had unrealised losses of more than $620 billion on securities, underscoring the hit from rising interest rates.
Germany’s Commerzbank issued a rare statement playing down any threat from SVB.
For now, analysts saw SVB’s issues as idiosyncratic and took comfort from safer business models at larger banks. BofA noted European banks’ bond holdings have not grown since 2015.
“Normally speaking, banks would not be taking big duration bets with deposits, but with such rapid rate rises it is clear why investors could be worried and are selling now and asking questions later,” said Gary Kirk, partner at TwentyFour Asset Management.
2/ DARLINGS NO MORE
Even after a first-quarter surge in stock prices, higher rates have dampened the willingness to take punts on early-stage or speculative businesses, especially as established tech firms have issued profit warnings and cut jobs.
Tech firms are reversing pandemic-era exuberance, cutting jobs after years of hiring sprees. Google owner Alphabet plans to axe about 12,000 workers; Microsoft, Amazon and Meta are together firing almost 40,000.
“Despite being a rate sensitive investment, NASDAQ has not responded to the implications of interest rates. If rates continue to rise in 2023, we may see a significant sell-off,” said Bruno Schneller, a managing director at INVICO Asset Management.
3/ DEFAULT RISKS
The risk premium on corporate debt has fallen since the start of the year and signals little risk, but corporate defaults are rising.
S&P Global said Europe had the second-highest default count last year since 2009.
It expects U.S. and European default rates to reach 3.75% and 3.25%, respectively, in September 2023 versus 1.6% and 1.4% a year before, with pessimistic forecasts of 6.0% and 5.5% not “out of the question.”
And with defaults rising, the focus is on the less visible private debt markets, which have ballooned to $1.4 trillion from $250 billion in 2010.
In a low rate world, the largely floating-rate nature of the financing appealed to investors, who can reap returns up to the low double digits, but now that means ballooning interest costs as central banks hike rates.
4/CRYPTO WINTER
Bitcoin staged a recovery at the start of the year but was languishing at two-month lows on Friday .
Caution remains. After all, rising borrowing costs roiled crypto markets in 2022, with Bitcoin prices plunging 64%.
The collapse of various dominant crypto companies, most notably FTX, left investors shouldering large losses and prompted calls for more regulation.
Shares of crypto-related companies fell on March 9, after Silvergate Capital Corp (SI.N), one of the biggest banks in the cryptocurrency industry announced it would wind down operations and sparked a crisis of confidence in the industry.
5/FOR SALE
Real estate markets started cracking last year and house prices will fall further this year.
Fund managers surveyed by BofA see China’s troubled real estate sector as the second most likely source of a credit event.
European real estate reported distress levels not seen since 2012 by November, law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges found.
How the sector funds itself is key. Officials warn European banks risk significant profit hits from sliding house prices, which is making them less likely to lend to the sector.
Real estate investment management firm AEW estimates the sector in UK, France and Germany could face a 51 billion euro debt funding gap through 2025.
Asset managers Brookfield and Blackstone recently defaulted on some debt tied to real estate as interest rate hikes and falling demand for offices in particular hit property values.
“The reality that some of the values out there aren’t right and perhaps need to be marked down is something that everyone’s focused on,” said Brett Lewthwaite, global head of fixed income at Macquarie Asset Management.
($1 = 0.9192 euros)
Reporting by Yoruk Bahceli, Chiara Elisei, Nell Mackenzie, Dhara Ranasinghe, Naomi Rovnick, Elizabeth Howcroft; Graphics by Kripa Jayaram and Vincent Flasseur; Editing by Dhara Ranasinghe and Toby Chopra
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NEW YORK, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Memory chip maker Western Digital Corp (WDC.O) said on Tuesday it will receive $900 million through a convertible preferred stock deal from private equity firm Apollo Global Management Inc (APO.N) and hedge fund Elliott Management Corp.
Western Digital said the preferred stock it sold to Apollo and Elliot has a conversion price of $47.75 per share, which is approximately a 9% premium on its closing price of $43.95 on Tuesday. It will also pay a dividend starting at 6.25% per year.
Last year, Western Digital launched a review of strategic alternatives, including options for splitting off its flash-memory and hard-drive businesses, after activist Elliott disclosed a stake of nearly $1 billion in the company and pushed it to separate those businesses.
On Tuesday, Western Digital CEO David Goeckeler said the partnership with Apollo and Elliott would help “facilitate the next stages of Western Digital’s strategic review.”
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“We look forward to working together in advancing our goal of creating value and finalizing the best possible strategic outcome for our shareholders,” said Goeckeler.
The latest investment is a precursor to a potential merger between Silicon Valley-based Western Digital and Japan’s Kioxia Holdings Corp, according to people familiar with the matter. The sources, who requested anonymity as these discussions are confidential, said the talks between Western Digital and Kioxia are still active.
The two companies were in merger talks in 2021 before the negotiations cooled off.
Bloomberg reported on the talks between Western Digital and Kioxia earlier.
Western Digital and Kioxia jointly produce NAND chips, which are widely used in smartphones, TVs, data center servers and public announcement display panels.
Western Digital’s shares fell nearly 7% in trading after market hours.
Qatalyst Partners, Lazard and J.P. Morgan are serving as Western Digital’s financial advisers and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP is serving as Western Digital’s legal adviser. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP is serving as the Apollo funds’ legal adviser, while Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP is serving as Elliott’s legal adviser.
Reporting by Chibuike Oguh in New York; Editing by Anirban Sen and Lincoln Feast
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