Elpida to Cut Debt, Buy Assets Amid Record Profits

Elpida Memory Inc., the world’s third-biggest maker of computer-memory chips, plans to cut debt and buy assets as a recovery in computer sales helps it post record profits a year after receiving a government bailout.

“We’ll seek opportunities including acquisitions and partnerships,” Executive Officer Takehiro Fukuda, who oversees finance and accounting at Tokyo-based Elpida, said in an interview at his office. “We need to further expand the range of our business” in areas such as mobile phone and television chips, and we plan to cut our debt-to-equity ratio to 1 from 1.3 by yearend and eventually to 0.3, he said.