(Bloomberg) -- Japanese memory chipmaker Kioxia Holdings Corp. has shelved its plan to debut its shares on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in October, Reuters said.
Kioxia, which is majority-owned by private equity firm Bain Capital, was preparing for an initial public offering in a bid to remain competitive. The IPO, which Bloomberg reported could raise about $500 million, was widely expected to be Japan’s biggest this year. Reuters did not specify whether Kioxia planned a debut at a later date.
“We are preparing for an IPO at the appropriate time,” a Kioxia spokesperson said Tuesday, declining to comment further. A representative of Bain declined to comment.
In the four years since scrapping an October 2020 listing, Kioxia’s fallen technologically behind Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc., leaving it even more vulnerable in the next downturn. A prolonged slump in NAND prices has eaten into the Japanese company’s ability to invest in research and development and in new capacity.
Kioxia, spun out of Toshiba Corp. in 2018, has been struggling to win market share in AI data centers and wean itself of reliance on smartphone chip demand. Weak prices of NAND hurts Kioxia more than its rivals, which have revenues from other products such as artificial intelligence-supporting DRAM.
“This is not the first time this IPO has been shelved,” said Rafael Nemet-Nejat, a senior portfolio manager at Jin Investment Management Pte. “They will likely try to list again in the future. The Japanese IPO market is very healthy, illustrated by the recent launches of Rigaku and Tokyo Metro.”
Kioxia, which has also been juggling on-again-off-again merger talks with Western Digital Corp., had been seeking an IPO to raise money to ramp up and to capitalize on a rally in chip prices.
Bain had been targeting a market value of ¥1.5 trillion ($10 billion) for Kioxia but recent declines in the stock prices of its competitors has made that pricing challenging, Reuters said, citing two people familiar with the matter.
--With assistance from Min Jeong Lee and Aya Wagatsuma.
(Updates with company and analyst commentary)
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