SK Hynix won approval from the Chinese competition authorities for acquiring the NAND flash division of Intel, a US semiconductor company.
According to industry sources on December 22, China's The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) approved an antitrust review of SK Hynix's acquisition of Intel's NAND business and SSD business. With this, SK Hynix has completed regulatory review by competition authorities in eight countries in relation to the acquisition of Intel's NAND business.
After announcing the contract to acquire Intel's NAND business, SK hynix has been receiving related permits one after another from authorities in seven countries, including Korea and the United States, where the business site is located. After receiving approval from the Singapore government in July, it was last approved by the Chinese authorities.
At one time, there was speculation that the US and Chinese competition authorities' approval of the review might have been delayed or had been delayed for a long time.
However, it seems that governments in each country decided to approve it as a result, taking into account the real benefits that their countries would get from SK's acquisition of the NAND business.
This is because the US can expect the effect of Intel's expansion of investment in its own country, and China will get the benefit of SK Hynix's continued investment in the Dalian plant owned by Intel.
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won is known to have built up political and business networks as well as the Chinese government by participating in the Boao Forum for Asia for a long time after holding the Beijing Forum, Shanghai Forum, and Nanjing Forum every year to get approval from competition authorities in each country.
Meanwhile, SK Hynix's acquisition of Intel's NAND flash business is worth about 10 trillion won, the largest overseas acquisition by a Korean company.
