Japanese Toshiba and Fujitsu have reached a preliminary agreement, whereby Toshiba will acquire the latter's money-losing HDD (Hard Disk Drive) business in Spring 2009 at the earliest, Nikkei Weekly reported on January 19. The deal is estimated to value at 30-40 billion Yen (US$340.4 million - $453.8 million; US$1 = 88.14 Yen).

Pursuant to the agreement, Toshiba will also take over Fujitsu's two assembly plants, one in Thailand and the other in Philippines. Meanwhile, Toshiba will also take control of Fujitsu's R&D business unit located in Yamagata prefecture, Japan. The deal, however, is slated to finalize by the end of January, 2009, according to the same source.