Ten bidders lined-up for Toshiba memory chip business

Hynix, Micron, Kingston, Western Digital and Foxconn all interested in acquiring Toshiba's 'crown jewels'

Toshiba has lined up as many as ten bidders for its memory chip business as it looks to dig itself out of a financial hole dug as a result of injudicious investments in nuclear power.

The one-time giant electronics company is looking to right itself financially by effectively selling its semiconductor crown jewels. Bidders have until the end of March to express an interest.

According to Bloomberg News, bidders include hard-disk drive maker Western Digital, electronics giant Foxconn, and memory-chip rivals SK Hynix, Micron Technology and Kingston Technology.

The Development Bank of Japan is also considering a joint offer with US financial bidders as well as, according to Japanese newspaper reports, Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, a group founded in 2009 and majority owned by the Japanese government.

In addition, the usual slew of private equity outfits are believed to be considering bids. These include Bain Capital, Silver Lake Partners and KKR. However, they are expected to wait until close to the deadline for bids before revealing their interest.

Bids for the company are expected to range from 700 billion yen to 18. trillion yen - around £5bn to £12.8bn. The company reportedly wants to raise at least 1.5 trillion yen from the sale, or around £12.1bn.

While most of the supposed bidders have been tight-lipped about their interest, Foxconn founder Terry Gou has been quite open, admitting earlier this month that he is "very serious" about bidding for Toshiba's memory chip business.

Toshiba has until March 2018 to complete the sale of its semiconductor business after its main lenders agreed to extend support for the company, after it made posted losses in the nuclear-power construction industry.

Final bids need to be in by 29 March.