Kioxia Holdings was supposed to be an irresistible debutant in a hot Japanese market, heralding the rise of a homegrown chipmaker with big backers and a storied pedigree. It may get a cooler reception than anticipated.
The pioneer in NAND flash memory — chips that store information in smartphones and data-center servers — is listing Wednesday after years of complex and wide-ranging negotiations that involved Bain Capital, SK, Western Digital and the Japanese government. Its initial public offering has been touted as the start of a comeback for a company born out of Toshiba, which invented the component in the 1980s and helped spearhead the Japanese economic miracle.
Yet Kioxia — whose name combines the Japanese word for memory and the Greek one for value — is a shadow of its former self. Investment faltered as parent Toshiba wrestled with years of scandals and crippling losses at nuclear giant Westinghouse, stalling its technological advance. That, in turn, helped the ascent of South Korean rivals Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which Seoul heavily supported. And finally, the global post-COVID-19 smartphone slump wiped out growth.
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