The outcome in the race for over $20 billion deal to grab the world’s second largest NAND flash memory business from troubled Toshiba Corp. of Japan has become murkier near the finish line with the front-running group getting more and more crowded through matching among tech and capital titans for an interest in the ever-growing flash memory business.

According to reports by Japanese news outlets, South Korea’s chipmaker SK Hynix’s team with U.S. Bain Capital is poised to up its last-minute appeal by possibly joining up with the home team led by government-backed Innovation Network of Corp. of Japan and U.S. equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR). Toshiba under government pressure to prevent the memory business from going under foreign hands, particularly the Chinese will announce the winning team for exclusive talks on Thursday.

The two teams are said to be discussing merger as they lag behind the price bids against the consortium led by U.S. chipmaker Broadcom purported to have offered 2.2 trillion yen ($20 billion) and Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn, offering 3 trillion yen. KKR consortium reportedly has bid 1.8 trillion yen and Bain-Hynix team 1 trillion yen for a 50 percent stake. Toshiba desperate to raise as much capital as possible to cover the massive losses from its nuclear business could be drawn by the highest bid.

The government-led team which wants to maintain Japanese stake in memory chip has also reportedly invited in Toshiba’s long-standing partner Western Digital that also is trying to block the semiconductor unit from going to a third party.

Foxconn Technology, the world’s largest contract electronics maker eager to better rival Samsung Electronics, claims to be backed by U.S. technology giants Apple and Amazon and Sharp Corp. that it has acquired last year.

By Hwang Hyung-gyu and Jung Wook

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]