Toshiba finalises Fujitsu hard drive takeover

Toshiba has officially completed its takeover of Fujitsu's hard drive business with the formation of the Toshiba Storage Device Corporation (TSDC).

The deal was originally broached in February with a definitive agreement announced at the end of April.

Although Toshiba is not paying anything for the business, it is taking on a US$60m ($69.3m) hit from previous Fujitsu operating losses.

All the necessary legwork has now been done, and the data transfer is complete. For the time being Fujitsu will keep a stake of just under 20 percent of TSDC while Toshiba gets to grips with the operations. In due course its stake will be transferred wholly to Toshiba.

TSDC is a Toshiba Group subsidiary and itself has four subsidiaries spanning Japan, Thailand and the Philippines, with a total of around 8,000 employees.

The cost of solid state drives (SSDs) is starting to plummet while their capacity continues to increase, and some are predicting that the days of traditional spinning disks are numbered. But it will still be at least a few years before SSDs overtake hard drives on a large scale.