Taiwan's ProMOS agrees to sell 12-inch fab to GlobalFoundries

Taiwan Cooperative Financial Holding Co

28/03/2013 08:22

TAIPEI, March 28 (Reuters) - Taiwanese chipmaker ProMOS Technologies Inc  5387.TWO  said on Thursday that it has agreed to sell its 12-inch wafer fab to Silicon Valley-based contract chipmaker GlobalFoundries, after failing to dispose of the asset in two previous auctions.

ProMos, whose shares were delisted due to its heavy debt burden, has not been able to find a buyer for the facility since 2011 to repay loans to banks including Taiwan Cooperative Financial Holding Co Ltd  5880.TW , Chinatrust Financial Holding Co Ltd  2891.TW  and state-owned Bank of Taiwan  BKTW.UL .

A banking source told Reuters earlier that ProMOS had hoped to sell the facility for T$20 billion ($669.42 million).

A company spokesman at ProMOS declined to give details on the value of the deal.

ProMOS's problems reflect the state of the global dynamic random access memory (DRAM) industry, which is struggling to keep afloat amid falling prices, stiff competition and higher costs of investing in new technology.

Japan's last DRAM chipmaker Elpida Memory Inc  ELPDQ.PK  agreed to be bought by U.S. rival Micron Technology Inc  MU.O  last July.  ($1 = 29.8765 Taiwan dollars)

(Reporting by Clare Jim; Editing by Ryan Woo)

((clare.jim@thomsonreuters.com)(886 2 25004882)(Reuters Messaging: clare.jim.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: PROMOS GLOBALFOUNDRIES/