| Updated:
Western Digital in $4.3bn deal
Western Digital, the world’s second-biggest hard drive maker, yesterday agreed to buy Hitachi’s hard disk drive operations for about $4.3bn (£2.7bn) in cash and stock. After the deal, Hitachi will own 10 per cent of Western Digital. Western Digital said it had secured a term loan of $2bn and a revolving credit facility of $500m to fund the deal. The largest tech deal to be struck this year caps years of consolidation for a beleaguered industry that has battled persistent sales growth declines, and now faces a longer-term threat from wireless devices like Apple’s iPad.