Samsung Dumps $5.9 Million SanDisk Bid

We were all excited about this—okay, maybe that’s a stretch—but unfortunately, Samsung Electronics withdrew its $5.9 billion unsolicited bid for flash memory card maker SanDisk Corp, according to Reuters, saying that SanDisk’s deepening losses and uncertain outlook became too worrying to continue with the idea.

It’s pretty nasty too, so we’ll just quote Samsung CEO Lee Yoon-woo, who wrote the following to SanDisk bigwigs in a letter disclosed Wednesday:

“Your surprise announcements of a quarter billion dollar operating loss, a hurried renegotiation of your relationship with Toshiba and major job losses across your organization all point to a considerable increase in your risk profile and a material deterioration in value, both on a stand-alone basis as well as to Samsung.”

There were plenty of possibilities in the bid, which would have given Samsung cheap access to flash memory in a time when mobile media-capable cell phones are starting to come with it built-in in earnest. (The Jesus Phone has something to do with that.)

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