Kioxia, the company that inherited Toshiba’s flash memory business, was due to go public this month. The current shareholders of Kioxia decided to abandon this event, since investors valued its assets at a maximum of $5.4 billion, while Bain Capital expected at least $10 billion.
Image source: Kioxia
Reuters reported this last weekend, explaining the reasons for Kioxia’s refusal to enter the public stock market in October of this year. It should also be remembered that in 2018, a consortium of investors led by Bain Capital paid $13.4 billion for the assets of Toshiba Memory Corporation, so even an IPO scenario optimistic for existing shareholders would imply recording losses on this transaction.
Kioxia’s $5.4 billion asset valuation reflects how concerned investors are about the current state of affairs in the NAND memory market. A representative of a hedge fund cited by Reuters explained that although an IPO of Kioxia does not seem feasible in the current environment, the situation could change for the better by the end of the fiscal year, which ends in March 2025.
The boom of artificial intelligence systems in the NAND market was reflected to a lesser extent, since the emerging increase in memory prices gave way to stabilization. Only next year will the need to increase storage capacity in client devices due to the spread of AI systems cause an increase in prices for this type of memory, according to Omdia analysts. Kioxia remains the third-largest solid-state memory manufacturer in the world by revenue with a share of 13.8%.