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Technology Stocks : MEMC INT'L. (WFR -NYSE) The Sleeping Giant? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: All Mtn Ski who wrote (4568)	1/14/2000 11:56:00 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4697

MEMC negotiates to buy majority of wafer venture in Korea Semiconductor Business News (01/14/00, 08:40:58 AM EDT) SEOUL -- Wafer substrate supplier MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. said it might acquire majority ownership in a Korean joint venture after its partner, Pohang Iron & Steel Co. Ltd. (POSCO), expressed a desire to sell its 40% share in the company. Currently, MEMC owns a 40% stake in Seoul-based Posco Huls Co. Ltd., which produced polished silicon wafers for semiconductor manufacturers in the region. The venture was set up 10 years ago and began producing silicon substrates in 1993 at a facility in Chonan, Korea. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. owns 20% of the joint venture. MEMC officials in St. Peters, Mo., would only say that the negotiations are ongoing, and no other information was made available about the potential acquisition. Last year, the majority shareholder of MEMC announced plans to sell its shares in the wafer supplier and other businesses as part of a huge merger between German industrial conglomerates (see Sept. 27, 1999, story). Veba of Dusseldorf owns 71.8% of MEMC, which ranks among the world's top five suppliers of blank silicon wafers. Without counting revenues from joint ventures in Korea and Taiwan, MEMC's 1998 market share in silicon wafers was 12.8%, or about $722 million, said analyst Daniel J. Rose of Rose Associates in Los Altos, Calif. However, MEMC officials maintain that the company's share was actually 16% when joint-venture revenues were included, making it the second largest merchant supplier of silicon in the world.