Micron Buys Stake in Qimonda Venture

Qimonda(QI Quote) said Monday it reached an agreement to sell its 35.6% stake in Inotera Memories Inc., a joint venture with Taiwan's Nanya Technology, to Micron Technology(MU Quote).

Micron will purchase Qimonda's stake in Inotera, a Taiwanese DRAM memory manufacturer, for $400 million in cash in two instalments. Qimonda will receive $200 million for about one-half its holding in about one week, the company said in a statement Monday.

Qimonda said it expects to record a one-time book loss on its investment in Inotera of about 300 million euros.

Germany's Infineon Technologies(IFX Quote), which owns about 77.5% of Qimonda, said it had held talks with a number of third parties on possibly selling all or a portion of its stake in Qimonda, but the outcome of these talks was uncertain amid weak market conditions, Reuters reports.

Micron said it has obtained $285 million in term loan financing commitments to help fund the purchase.

In the current Qimonda and Nanya partnership, Inotera operates two 300-millimeter wafer fabrication facilities producing a total of 120,000 wafers a month. Under the agreement, Micron said it will acquire access to half of the total manufacturing capacity of Inotera, with the other half allocated to Nanya.