Western Digital shares were trading sharply higher Wednesday, aided by a pair of positive Wall Street research notes and a report suggesting that the company is inching closer to a deal that would split off its flash-memory-chip business.
In May 2022, the activist investment firm Elliott Investment Management wrote a letter to Western Digital urging management to consider splitting up the business. “By any objective measure, Western Digital has underperformed—operationally, financially and strategically—as a direct result of the challenges of operating two vastly different businesses as part of the same company,” Elliott said in the letter.
In May of this year, Western shares rallied on a Reuters report suggesting merger talks with the company’s joint venture partner in flash memory production, Japan-based Kioxia Holdings, were heating up. And now there are signs that a transaction could be coming soon.