TOKYO (Reuters) – Kioxia Holdings Corp, the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker, will scrap plans for an initial public offering (IPO) as tensions between China and the United States have been rising, the Nikkei Business magazine reported on Sunday.
The reported decision comes after Kioxia earlier this month set a tentative price range for an IPO in Tokyo that put the market value lower than 2 trillion yen ($18.94 billion), the price that a Bain Capital-led group paid for the company two years ago.
Kioxia, formerly known as Toshiba Memory, had planned to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Oct. 6.
Toshiba said in a statement the company was not in a position to comment on Kioxia’s IPO. Bain Capital could not be immediately reached for comment.
The memory chip market is bracing for an impact from tighter U.S. restrictions on Huawei Technologies Co Ltd that came into force this month.
Kioxia warned the tighter rules could cause memory chip oversupply and drive down market prices.
(Reporting by Takashi Umekawa; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
