Memory chipmaker Kioxia set for December IPO in Japan, valued at $4.9B – report

Private equity firm Bain Capital-backed Kioxia is being valued at about 750B yen (around $4.85B) in its proposed Japanese IPO, Reuters reported.

Kioxia, which is among the world’s largest makers of NAND flash memory, intends to conduct the IPO on Dec. 18 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the report added.

Kioxia has set an indicative price of 1,390 yen for the secondary offering and new shares. The IPO will have a deal value of around 100B yen ($645.45M), excluding overallotment, the report noted.

Earlier this month, the company had filed a registration statement for the IPO.

Bain, which led a consortium to acquire Kioxia from Toshiba for $18B in 2018, has thought about listing Kioxia in the past as well. A 56% stake in Kioxia is owned by a special-purpose company formed by Bain and South Korean chipmaker SK hynix. Toshiba has a 41% stake in Kioxia, according to a previous report by Nikkei.

Toshiba and Bain will sell shares in the IPO. Separately, Kioxia will issue new shares, and raise about 27.7B yen (around $180M), according to the report.

Kioxia, reportedly, had called off IPO plans for October in Japan, after investors pushed Bain to almost half the valuation it was seeking for the chipmaker. Previously, Bain was in discussions with investment banks to list the Japanese company. Kioxia was expected to raise about $500M, and garner a market capitalization of over 1.5T yen ($10.3B) via the IPO.

The sell-off in shares of Kioxia’s listed peers had made the pricing challenging, as per previous reports. Shares of Samsung Electronics (OTCPK:SSNLF), SK hynix and Micron Technology (MU), had seen a decline from their highs.

The Tokyo-based company was also in discussions for a transaction to integrate with Western Digital’s (WDC) memory business, intending to form an entity that could challenge NAND memory market leader Samsung.

However, discussions were called off in October 2023. SK hynix had said that it would not agree to the merger of Kioxia and Western Digital’s flash memory business due to impact on the value of the company’s investment.