China’s Ministry of Commerce briefly told Reuters on Tuesday that it is evaluating the transaction but did not elaborate further.
A person directly informed said that if the transaction is to be completed before the March 31 deadline, it must be approved by China's anti-monopoly authority early this week, as administrative procedures and transfers will still take some time to complete.
If it cannot be completed as scheduled, Toshiba will have the right to abandon the sale of the chip subsidiary without paying a fine. Some investors have urged Toshiba to consider this option. Toshiba’s chip subsidiary is the world’s second-largest NAND chip maker.
A Toshiba spokesperson said that the company has not yet given up its efforts to complete the transaction by the end of the month. Even if it misses the deadline, it will still sell the chip business as soon as possible.
Previously, some analysts predicted that the flash memory business will be split and listed. There are also media reports that the lack of anti-monopoly approval may be a good thing for Toshiba. Since the financial data has improved, the company can re-raise the bid price even more than the current The price was $4 billion higher. Some active shareholders opposed Toshiba’s transaction and believed that the value of the assets was underestimated. They thought that they should negotiate with Bain Capital on the purchase price, or make the flash business split.
It is generally believed that the biggest difficulty in the review of Toshiba deals comes from South Korea's Hynix. The industry is also concerned that if the acquisition is completed, Hynix will gain greater scale and influence in the market and damage the market competition. Historically, Hynix has passed Abnormal means to obtain a case of Toshiba Semiconductor Technology.