SEOUL: South Korea’s SK Hynix Inc says it has completed the first phase of its acquisition of Intel Corp’s NAND flash memory chip business, after it received regulatory nods from eight countries including China.

       In exchange, SK Hynix will pay US$7bil (RM29.19bil) out of the deal’s total US$9bil (RM37.53bil) price tag, the world’s second-largest memory chip maker said in a statement.

       The deal, signed in 2020, will allow Intel to focus on its smaller but more lucrative Optane memory business.

       For SK Hynix, it is the biggest acquisition ever as it seeks to boost its capacity to build NAND chips, used to store data in smartphones and data centre servers.

       “This acquisition will present a paradigm shifting moment for SK Hynix’s NAND flash business to enter the global top-tier level,” said Park Jung-ho, vice-chairman and co-CEO of SK Hynix.

       A SK Hynix subsidiary called Solidigm, headquartered in San Jose, California, will manage the newly acquired NAND solid-state drive business.

       SK Hynix co-CEO Lee Seok-hee will be appointed executive chairman of Solidigm, while Rob Crooke, former senior vice-president of Intel, will be appointed CEO of Solidigm, SK Hynix said in the statement. — Reuters