Korea’s Anam Group is restructuring so it can focus its energies on its semiconductor manufacturing interests and is setting up a joint venture in Korea with Texas Instruments Inc. The Seoul-based company plans to reduce the number of its subsidiaries to five from the current 14. Reports in the Korean press last week indicate Anam is in talks with interested unnamed US buyers looking to purchase its Anam Electronic Inc division. But proving its commitment to semiconductors, Anam is setting up the joint venture with Texas Instruments to establish a new fabrication plant. Each company has invested $450m in the new submicron foundry which will produce digital signal processors, initially under the TI name. Production will start in July and be up to full capacity in December. Next year the plant will produce chips that will be sold under the Anam name. Texas Instruments is the first US company to invest in the Korean chip market, and at a time when the country is still going through hard economic times. TI and Anam had planned to open a second fab in December which would have cost $4bn, but because of the economic climate have decided to hold off for the time being. But analysts are of the opinion that because the plant will produce DSPs and not Dynamic Random Access Memory chips, which are going through a rapid price decline at the moment, the companies’ investments should be safe. Anam predicts revenues of $300m for 1998, but as a result of the new fab has projected $625m for 1999.
