The United Kingdom's Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy delayed its decision for the third time regarding the ownership of its Dutch subsidiary Nexperia as reported by South China Morning Post.
One of the companies that are affected by this is Apple's supplier Wingtech, a contract manufacturer of smartphones in China. The announcement was supposed to happen last October 3rd whether the United Kingdom will approve or block the $72 million acquisition of Newport Wafer Fab.
As per the report, another 45 days were requested to review which ran for the whole of September and will be supposed to be concluded on October 3rd. The assessment started in May this year through UK's newest National Security and Investment Act.
UK Tech News reported that ministers were given an option to request an extension to the deadlines of national security probes. While this is legal, the delay might create uncertainty for the involved parties if it pushes fro more than a year after the agreement.
Nexperia stated, "The only date formally communicated to us by the ISU, the UK's Investment Security Unit, remains October 3rd, But there are circumstances in which they can stop the clock, to look at specific issues more closely. Beyond that, we cannot comment further."
No further information regarding the delay was given by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
This deal was one of the strategies of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Wingtech Zhang Xuezheng into the supply chain of the global semiconductor. He was one of the contributors to acquiring Nexperia for $3.6 billion last 2018. Xuezheng is also currently the CEO of Nexperia since 2020.
Possible Reasons for the Delay
The Register reported that the delayed decision might be because of UK's eventful month last September. This was the month when Liz Truss was declared the Prime Minister. Because of this, departmental heads were changed including BEIS Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng. As of now, Jacob Rees-Mogg is the BEIS Secretary. Aside from this is that the department is currently working on the energy crisis.
The national government business was also halted as the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth needed to be conducted.
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Written by Inno Flores
