Nippon Steel Corp now has agreement to buy the majority stake held by ball-bearing maker Minebea Co in NMB Semiconductor Corp. Japan’s biggest steel company plans to pay $44.3m for 56% of NMB by the end of March and take over the company’s $241m debt. And Minebea will write off $72.5m in direct loans to NMB and repay $283m in NMB borrowing that it had guaranteed, reducing the semiconductor unit’s outstanding debt to $241m as of February 28. Because it is effectively giving the business away, Minebea will have to take a net charge of $379m in the year to September 1993 on the disposal. The new firm, Nippon Steel Semiconductor Corp, will have three plants, one making 4M-bit memory chips. It is negotiating with Hitachi Ltd for technology and a deal in which Hitachi would sell some of its output under its own name. The actual transaction will be between Nippon Steel’s Dutch subsidiary Nippon Steel Europe and Minebea’s Minebea Advanced Technology arm, Reuter reports from Tokyo.
