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Electronista: Toshiba Corporation and Fujitsu Limited on Thursday today announced the terms of the definitive agreement, following the pair’s memorandum of understanding completed in mid-February.

Under the agreement, Fujitsu will transfer its hard disk drive (HDD) business to Toshiba, with a target completion date of July 1st.

A new company, Toshiba Storage Device Corporation (TSDC), will assume all of Fujitsu’s HDD-related business and functions, with Fujitsu’s manufacturing operations in the Philippines and Thailand being renamed to Toshiba Storage Devices Philippines (TSDP) and Toshiba Storage Devices Thailand (TSDT).

At the same time, Yamagata Fujitsu Limited will become Toshiba Storage Device Yamagata Corporation (TSDY), with all three companies becoming wholly-owned subsidiaries of TSDC once the deal is completed. Toshiba will then handle the sales and marketing of all HDD products, while design, research and development and production handled by TSDC. The majority of Fujitsu’s sales and marketing offices outside of Japan will be transferred to Toshiba’s overseas business operations.

Toshiba will acquire an 80.1 percent stake in TSDC by July 1st, with Fujitsu holding 19.9 percent of shares until the end of December 2010. On January 1st, 2011, Toshiba will receive all shares of TSDC. The business transfer will see about 800 employees in Japan and nearly 7,000 worldwide transfer over from Fujitsu to Toshiba. The deal is expected to be worth the equivalent of about $305 million. TSDC will be one of the largest hard drive makers, competing against rivals like Hitachi and Seagate.

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JCN Network: Toshiba Corp. will buy Fujitsu Ltd.’s unprofitable computer-storage drive business to help narrow its gap with industry leader Seagate Technology in the US$32.6 billion market.

Toshiba aims to buy 80 percent of the business by the quarter ending June 30 and eventually acquire full ownership.

Revenue at the hard-disk drive business will rise to about 600 billion yen (US$6.5 billion) in the year ending March 2013. The companies said they have yet to agree on a price, estimated by Deutsche Bank Group AG to be hundreds of billions of yen.

The combination would almost double Toshiba’s market share in hard-disk drives to about 16 percent, rivaling Hitachi’s rank as the industry’s third-largest producer.

Toshiba, the industry’s fourth-ranked producer, said the Fujitsu business will help raise its market share to 20 percent by 2015. The sale allows Fujitsu to shed a business that’s been unprofitable since 2007 to focus on providing computer services.

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