Elpida Memory Inc. (Japan) has announced that its two largest shareholders, Hitachi Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) and NEC Corp. (Japan), plan to sell a portion of their shares by September 30, 2005. NEC plans to sell 9.6 million shares, reducing its holdings in Elpida from 24 percent to 14 percent, and dropping its shareholding rank from first to second. Hitachi plans to sell four million Elpida shares, decreasing its holdings from 24 percent to 20 percent, but boosting its shareholding rank from second to first.
Upon completion of the sales, Elpida will no longer be considered an equity-method holding of NEC and Hitachi, meaning neither company will include Elpida's financial results in their respective reports. However, Elpida said its business relationships with the two companies will remain the same. Additionally, it doesn't expect the change in their Elpida holdings to affect Elpida's business performance. Shares will be sold to a securities company for resale to institutional investors.
