by Anton Shilov
01/29/2003 | 09:21 PM
According to various reports over the World Wide Web, Infineon recently started to sell off its shares in ProMOS, the joint venture between Mosel Vitelic and Infineon. Observers indicated that the Germany-based semiconductor manufacturer already sold nearly 3.6 million of shares, just about 6.25% of their 57.6 million of shares in total. As always in such situations, the main question is not in the figure that someone sells something (we already know who sells and how many shares are sold), but in the fact that who buys the shares of a company that can lose its license on technology process and the right to manufacture memory chips?
Unfortunately, at the moment I cannot tell you the name of the manufacturer who tries to acquire the 30.7% of ProMOS, since the information is not available anywhere. On the other hand, there are not a lot of companies who currently can invest in DRAM industry and might be interested in buying ProMOS. Given that the latter can be left without rights to manufacture their memory chips, any company who plans to acquire the stake in ProMOS should fully understand all the risks. I believe that currently not a lot of DRAM developers/manufacturers are very interested in buying a large share in ProMOS, unless they have some very clear plans for the future of that company.
For instance, Elpida in early January 2003 signed a deal with ProMOS, involving 90nm and below technologies and the establishment of a 12-inch joint venture in Taiwan (see this news-story). In October the new head of Elpida was appointed and proposed a lot of plans and ideas that can eventually bring the company’s profits and market share up. One of the really important actions was to find a foreign investor, who would invest in Elpida. Another point is to expand the manufacturing capacities. Earlier this year Elpida asked Intel to invest in the joint venture between Hitachi and NEC and help it to expand their present fabs. Note that in Fall 2002 Elpida announced alliance with Mitsubishi and PSC, who would manufacture memory using Elpida’s technology and sell it via Elpida’s channels, according to the terms of agreemeent. In case Intel is interested in such alliance, it may also help Elpida to buy part of ProMOS shares in order to expand the relationship between Elpida and ProMOS.
Another company that is reported to be interested in ProMOS is... Nanya, who has very close relations with Infineon. This Taiwanese DRAM maker is also interested in boosting its manufacturing capacities and owning even a part of ProMOS shares can help Nanya to become partners with ProMOS.
Of course, everything written above was not commented by representatives of the mentioned companies and some facts can be misleading. However, at the moment they look pretty logical and that is why they are here.