Samsung has sold its ailing hard disk business to storage giant Seagate for US$1.3bn in cash and shares. Under the deal, both companies will strategically align their hard disk businesses, including product development and patent cross-licensing.
Under the deal, Samsung will provide Seagate with NAND flash memory for use in Seagate’s solid state storage drives.
Seagate will supply disk drives to Samsung for PCs, notebooks and consumer electronics.
Samsung will receive significant equity ownership in Seagate.
Strategic ties between Samsung and Seagate
The combined value of these transactions and agreements is about US$1.375bn, which will be paid by Seagate to Samsung in the form of 50pc stock and 50pc cash.
“Delivering value to the market and consumers is the primary goal of the extensive agreement announced today,” said Oh-hyun, Kwon, president of the semiconductor business of Samsung Electronics.
“Samsung looks forward to extending our existing strategic ties with Seagate, to deliver creative technology solutions for a broad diversity of consumer, business and industrial applications,” Kwon said.