Western Digital Corp.’s proposed deal to buy Japan’s Fujitsu Ltd.’s disk drive business is off, according to reports.
A Japanese news report late last week quoted Fujitsu President Kuniaki Nozoe as saying there was, at the moment, “zero chance” of a deal.
Nozoe acknowledged that the two companies had been in talks, confirming long-running reports that the two were working on a deal for the past few months.
The rising value of the Japanese yen made it difficult to agree on a price and other specifics of the deal failed to be worked out, according to a Reuters report.
Tokyo-based Fujitsu was looking to sell off its computer products operations to focus on technology consulting, where it competes with IBM Corp. and Electronic Data Systems Corp.
The report showed Fujitsu was asking for a price of roughly $600 million for its disk drive business, which is struggling.
The business is projected to lose $107 million in the 12 months through March.
A spokesperson for Western Digital said the company “doesn’t comment on rumors.”
Lake Forest-based Western Digital competes in the cutthroat disk drive business with Fujitsu, Scotts Valley-based Seagate Technology LLC and Japan’s Hitachi Ltd.
A deal would have doubled Western Digital’s market share in 2.5-inch drives used in laptops to about 30% and put it ahead of archrival Seagate in 2.5-inch drives.
Western Digital’s shares closed down 3% on a recent market value of about $2.4 billion.
