Kioxia, the memory unit that nearly sank Toshiba, listed on the TSE in 2024

Kioxia began as Toshiba's memory division, the business that invented NAND flash memory in 1987. When Toshiba's accounting and nuclear crises pushed it toward collapse, the memory unit was carved out in 2017, and in 2018 Toshiba sold it for around ¥2 trillion to a Japan-U.S.-South Korea consortium led by Bain Capital Private Equity.

Going public was always the exit plan, but the market kept closing. Kioxia filed for an IPO in 2020 and pulled the listing at the last minute after escalating US-China tensions worsened the business environment for a chipmaker caught between the two economies.

The listing finally happened on December 18, 2024: shares opened at ¥1,440 against an IPO price of ¥1,455, giving Kioxia a market capitalization of about ¥776 billion and ranking as Japan's second-biggest IPO of 2024, behind only Tokyo Metro in October. By 2026 the company had moved to the center of the global AI investment rush, with the world's largest technology buyers signing lucrative multi-year contracts for its NAND flash, the high-capacity storage that AI infrastructure runs on.

TSE listing at ¥1,455 a share gave Kioxia a market capitalization of about ¥776 billion — Japan's second-biggest IPO of 2024 after Tokyo Metro.

Bain Capital's buyout was structured for an eventual public listing, so the owner kept pushing the IPO even after the 2020 withdrawal.

NAND flash demand flipped from glut to shortage as AI data infrastructure multiplied storage needs, restoring the profitability a listing required.

Listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange gave Japan a domestic memory champion story and gave Bain the liquidity route it had promised its investors.

The 2024 market rewarded scale in semiconductors, letting Kioxia complete the second-biggest Japanese IPO of the year despite pricing its shares slightly below the opening trade.

A distressed carve-out can outlive its collapsed parent if the owner commits to an exit early; the window between withdrawn IPO and completed listing is measured in years.

By 2026 Kioxia sat at the center of the AI memory boom, with memory prices rising double or triple digits and its CEO pledging to restrain increases to protect long-term AI demand. Ownership shifted: an investment vehicle for SK Hynix became its top shareholder and former parent Toshiba trimmed its stake to about 14.12%, while the company dismissed talk of a manufacturing tie-up with SK Hynix, citing antitrust hurdles and its joint facilities with Sandisk.