Apple agreed to the terms set by Bain Capital in its JPY2 trillion ($18 billion) bid to take control of Toshiba’s memory chip business, making way for a final agreement in a process spanning eight months, Bloomberg reported.

The private equity company is leading a consortium of investors, which also includes South Korea-based SK Hynix, US-based Kingston Technology, Dell and Seagate, as well as Japan-based Hoya, to bid for the memory arm of troubled Toshiba.

Apple, one of the world’s largest buyers of NAND flash storage, is backing the group to keep the market competitive so it can secure the best deals on price and supplies. Bloomberg reported earlier in the week rival private equity bidder KKR tried to convice Apple to join its consortium with Western Digital.

The Bain Capital consortium will hold 49.9 per cent of the voting rights in the new company, while Toshiba will retain a 40.2 per cent interest. With Toshiba and Hoya’s investments (JPY27 billion), Japan-based companies will hold more than 50 per cent of the common stock in the new company. The US investors will provide JPY415.5 billion in funding, while SK Hynix will invest JPY395 billion. Bain is putting in JPY212 billion.

Not final
Last week Toshiba agreed to sell the unit to the Bain Capital consortium, but US-based Western Digital said it would block the sale and filed a request for arbitration.

The consortium was named in June as the preferred bidder.

Toshiba’s board was expected to name a winner months ago, but the sale was delayed by legal action taken by Western Digital which partners the Japanese company in chip production. Western Digital filed a request for international arbitration and demanded veto rights on any sale.

Struggling Toshiba, the world’s second-largest maker of NAND flash memory chips, is selling 100 per cent of its memory business as it deals with a more than $1 billion write-down from its nuclear power business in the US.

Samsung controls about 40 per cent of the global flash memory market.