It was also said that they would look to IPO less than 20% of the spun-out company.

Previous ways of raising cash were to simply sell a stake to one bidder – the most likely being Western Digital which already partners Toshiba Semiconductor having bought out SanDisk’s share in a jv fab,

Western Digital is said to be willing to invest $5 billion in the spun-off chip business but this would imply it taking a larger share than Toshiba wants to sell.

Canon, Tokyo Electron and various private equity funds are said to be interested in buying a stake.

An IPO would open up the bidding to Chinese investment which might boost the value of the stake considerably. China urgently needs 3D NAND technology to fill the huge 300k wpm fabs it is building in Wuhan and Nanjing .

Toshiba is selling part of the chip business to pay off liabilities estimated at $4-7 billion incurred by its nuclear business.