Regulators Greenlight $19 Billion Acquisition of SanDisk By Western Digital

Transaction Expected to Close Thursday, May 12, 2016

The Ministry of Commerce of China (“MOFCOM”) has approved the acquisition of SanDisk by Western Digital Technologies, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC), SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) announced today.

This paves the way for the storage manufacturer to become even larger this Thursday when the transaction is expected to be completed. The deal is worth approximately $19 billion, and was originally announced in October of 2015.

Seagate and Western Digital are two of the largest hard drive manufacturers. SanDisk is currently the third-largest producer of NAND flash in the world, behind Toshiba and industry leader Samsung.