By selling a 20 percent stake in the business, Toshiba aims to raise a figure between 200 billion yen and 300 billion yen ($1.77 billion to $2.65 billion), while retaining a majority stake of 80 percent. Possible suitors include Western Digital as well as several investment funds.
If WD buys the stake it would create an even closer cooperation between the two companies. The former finished its acquisition of SanDisk in 2016, which was a major partner of Toshiba in the NAND industry.
The arrangement would provide Toshiba with short-term funds in the form of proceeds from the stake sale, as well as make it easier for the business to get bank loans and other funding for capital investment and research and development. This would facilitate growth driven by flash memory chips, eventually lifting Toshiba's capital. Toshiba and Western Digital operate a key flash memory plant together in the Mie Prefecture city of Yokkaichi.